US, EU and Brazil form feed safety alliance
Representatives of the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), the Feed Additives and Premixtures Association of the European Union (FEFANA) and Sindirações of Brazil have signed a cooperative agreement that will allow each to support and share knowledge about their respective feed safety schemes in order to reduce trade barriers and still meet the necessary regulatory requirements of each territory.
The agreements will allow local auditors to inspect either U.S. or Brazilian operators for compliance with Regulation (EC) 183/2005, which requires Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points principles be implemented in feed and feed ingredient facilities, and FAMI-QS (European Feed Additive and Premixture Quality System). Specifically, both agreements allow FAMI-QS to teach professionals from Brazilian and U.S. certification bodies so that they can provide FAMI-QS audits and certification to operators who export into the European Union.
The agreement will therefore facilitate trade of feed additives and premixtures between these territories. Moreover, this new agreement offers a tool for validating EU regulatory compliance for exporters from Brazil and US.
AFIA said enabling FCI auditors to verify compliance with the EU regulation is important since neither the Food and Drug Administration, nor the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will certify compliance with a program those government bodies deem quality-based. In fact, no government body will inspect and verify a firm’s compliance with this regulation, leaving exporters to rely on valid third-party certification systems. This new agreement has the potential to affect both U.S. importers and exporters of feeds and feed ingredients in two ways: First, it offers a tool for validating EU regulatory compliance for exporters; second, under the U.S. government’s Food Protection Plan, firms importing under recognized third-party certification systems will be prioritized for incoming inspections based on a risk-ranking approach.
AFIA and FEFANA representatives are planning the logistics of training FCI auditors to inspect U.S. firms based on FAMI-QS requirements. AFIA said it hopes to have the program accepting applications by late summer of 2009.
