Feed

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced March 24 that it intends to temporarily not enforce certain requirements to allow veterinarians to better utilize telemedicine to address animal health needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The FDA recognizes the vital role veterinarians play in protecting public health. This pandemic has had impacts on many of our everyday lives and professions, and during this time, we need to provide veterinarians with the latitude to expand the use of telemedicine in the care of animals, ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on March 17 issued guidance to communicate the agency’s intention temporarily not to enforce supplier verification onsite audit requirements for receiving facilities and importers under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic if other supplier-verification methods are used instead. Three of the FSMA-related regulations – the Preventive Controls for Human Foods (PC Human Food) rule, Preventive Controls for Animal Food (PC Animal Food) rule and ... Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced March 13 that U.S. companies interested in exporting feed additives, premixes or compound feed to China should contact FDA by no later than April 3, 2020. Interested companies are directed to provide to FDA the names and addresses of their registered facilities, as well as permission for FDA to share that data with China. Full instructions for U.S. animal food facilities can be found here. ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The NGFA has published guidance for feed facilities that provides information that may be used to develop plans to minimize the introduction and spread of pathogenic animal viruses, such as the African Swine Fever virus, and prepare for and respond to a potential foreign animal disease outbreak within the United States.  This guidance document is being provided as a service exclusively to NGFA member companies. Therefore, we request that no portion of the copyrighted guidance be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means ... Read More

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recently issued an update on its efforts to establish a consultation board for the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP). In its Feb. 20 update, APHIS said it is working to establish a collaborative process to award future funding under the NADPRP, as directed by the 2018 farm law. APHIS recently announced the first phase of this program by providing $5.2 million in program funds “to advance the capabilities, capacity and readiness of the nation’s animal agriculture sector responders through training ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed The 13th annual International Feed Regulators Meeting (IFRM), organized by the International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) in cooperation with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), brought together more than 130 regulators and feed industry professionals from 29 countries on Jan. 27-28 to exchange information and advance initiatives to provide safe feed and food in a sustainable manner globally. The meeting addressed Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) inspections along with a variety of other global feed issues  during the ... Read More

By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media The NGFA joined more than 80 food and agriculture groups in support of a bill that would authorize funding to hire additional Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel needed to conduct agriculture quarantine inspections at U.S. international ports of entry.  In a Jan. 22 letter to leaders of the House Committee on Homeland Security, the groups noted that “foreign pests and diseases cost the American economy tens of billions of dollars annually…CBP employees perform critically important agricultural inspections ... Read More

By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President, Feed More than 400 industry representatives and regulatory officials attended the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) meeting conducted on Jan. 21-23 in Albuquerque, N.M., to discuss a variety of animal food regulatory topics. Among the significant issues addressed during the meeting were: Adopting FSMA Regulations at the State Level: During the Current Issues and Outreach Committee’s meeting, representatives from the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) announced that a training program has ... Read More

The 2020 fiscal year appropriations legislation signed into law on Dec. 20 includes increased funding for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expedite its animal food ingredient approval process. The bill allocates $5 million to FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) to hire additional staff specifically to review and approve new animal food ingredient submissions. The allocation will allow CVM to nearly double ingredient approval staff, which will reduce the length of review time by the agency in the approval timeline.  The NGFA was among animal agriculture organizations ... Read More

A Senate committee on Dec. 3 advanced President Donald Trump’s nomination of Dr. Stephen Hahn to be the next U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions approved Hahn’s nomination by an 18-5 vote, sending his nomination to the full Senate. Ranking Member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she opposed Hahn’s nomination because he “refused to commit to implementing a strong policy to clear non-tobacco flavored e-cigarettes that have not undergone FDA review from the market – like the Trump administration promised to do before it ... Read More