CGFA recently submitted comments to the FDA on the  Food Safety Modernization Act proposed rule on "Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals."   CGFA's  Feed Manufacturing Study Group had a productive meeting and discussion  last month to address the issues and concerns that members wanted to see included in these comments.   We would like to thank the members who responded to CGFA  member action request and submitted their own company comments to the FDA.    In our  comments we stated that CGFA is supportive of the comments and recommendations of the National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA), the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) and the National Renderers Association (NRA) and encouraged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review and respond appropriately to all of our comments and recommendations. 

CGFA is in the process of providing members more information and access to updates on the latest information and resources concerning  FDA on the  Food Safety Modernization Act proposed rule on "Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals."     Our website is being updated to provide a resource page and will be available by the end of the month.

"Highly prescriptive" comments on FDA's proposed rule on how the feed and pet food industries will comply with the new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) were filed this week by the American Feed Industry Assn. (AFIA) and the National Grain & Feed Assn. (NGFA). California Grain & Feed Association and nearly 20 other state feed and grain organizations signed on to the formal filings, which totaled over 100 pages each.

Both groups focused on FSMA statutory language instructing FDA to ensure the rules on how the feed industry must comply with new risk-identification and mitigation requirements are significantly different than the human food rule.  

"AFIA is concerned that FDA has failed to clearly delineate the human food rules from the animal food rules as Congress intended," the feed group's comments said.  AFIA went on to say while there may be two different rules, both "are philosophically driven by the human food approach."

NGFA took the agency to task for repealing the word "contamination" throughout the rule. NGFA said FDA's regulations can't "rightfully focus on preventing 'contamination,'" and recommended the agency replace it with the world "adulteration," which has legal meaning within FDA's authority.

FSMA calls for Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMPs), which currently only exist for medicated feed mills.  AFIA, pointing out the proposed feed rule bases new CGMPs on the human food rule equivalent, wants FDA to go back and rewrite its animal food requirements to be "more practical and less prescriptive," allowing members to be more innovative and give companies which have never operated under CGMPs a better understanding of the system.  

NGFA pointed out the feed rule contains what looks a lot like a formal prescribed Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) program requirement, something Congress explicitly rejected.  "While the NGFA supports the use of prudent, appropriate and risk-based practices to assure the safety of animal feed and pet food, we strongly believe FDA's proposed preventive controls regulation is clearly not aligned with the intent of Congress," the group said.

Both groups called on FDA to adjust the compliance dates so CGMPs can be phased in, and preventive controls can follow.

EPA's proposed expansion of authority to regulate water under the Clean Water Act (CWA) definition of "waters of the U.S.," is running into the predictable push-back from agriculture, with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) this week announcing it will fight the rule going final.

In a related development, EPA announced this week its Science Advisory Board (SAB) will hold two teleconferences - April 28 and May 2 - on the proposed authority expansion.  The SAB, made up of independent third party experts, will discuss and take questions on the draft advisory report - and the underlying science - provided to EPA on the proposed rule. The likely reason the SAB is holding the calls is because critics of the proposed jurisdiction rule contend the SAB had not completed the evaluation of all relevant science before EPA published its proposal.  Details on how to participate in these calls can be found at www.epa.gov.

AFBF said its analysis of the EPA proposal found the rule "dismaying," and if finalized would "be an end run around the limits set by Congress and the Supreme Court." AFBF President Bob Stallman called the rulemaking a "serious threat to farmers, ranchers and other landowners."

"Under EPA's proposed new rule, waters - even ditches - are regulated even if they are miles from the nearest 'navigable' waters.  Indeed, so-called 'waters' are regulated even if they aren't wet most of the time," Stallman said in a statement.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, appearing before the House Agriculture Committee this week, was grilled on the EPA action.  Rep. David Scott (D, GA) questioned the lack of certainty farmers have in running their farms, not knowing what eventually may be defined as a "navigable water" under EPA authority.  Vilsack repeated last week's talking points when EPA published its proposal, saying the agency reaffirms several permitting exemptions for agriculture. 

The "centuries-old" practice by beer makers and liquor distillers of giving away or selling at a very low price the "spent grains" from their manufacturing process should be exempted from the animal feed rule proposed by FDA under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  The alcohol refiners said this week that by giving away or selling cheaply the spent grains, they're helping farmers by providing the byproduct as animal feed. They said the product does not present a food safety risk.

The beer and liquor industries intensely lobbied Congress, seeking support for the exemption demand. They contend FDA is trying to get at ethanol refiners when it includes dried distillers grains (DDGs) in the FSMA proposed rule because some ethanol makers use antibiotics to assist the distilling process.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., was hit full bore by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee on Agriculture/FDA during her testimony this week.  She said she was unaware of the spent grains practice and would go back to the agency and discuss it with the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) which regulates the feed industry. She added the feed rule is under "evaluation" and a publication later this spring of a revised rule is planned.

The CME Group's rule that includes factoring in electronic trading when settling end-of-day grain futures contracts can stand, according to a judge on the Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois.  Some traders, mostly those who trade in open-outcry pits at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) - owned by CME Group - challenged the rule to force CME to revise end-of-day calculation of settlement prices on grain contracts. Before CME included electronic trading in its calculations, the contract price was settled based on trading in the various commodity pits. Electronic trading, open-outcry traders allege, has cost them business and made the pits "largely irrelevant."

USDA reported this week acreage planted to corn this season sits at 91.7 million acres, down 4% from last year. If realized, this acreage represents a five-year low, but the fifth largest area planted to corn since 1944.  

Soybeans, on the other hand, have been planted on 81.5 million acres, a record and 6% higher than last year.  With the exception of Missouri and Oklahoma, all states reported higher soybean acreage.

Corn stocks in all positions as of March 1, were set by the department at 7.01 billion bushels, up a whopping 30% from last year's March 1 report. Soybeans in all positions were reported at 992 million bushels, down 1% from last year on March 1. 

Chairman Jeffrey DeFrain, Ph.D., DPL ACAS-Nutrition  is please to announce the 2014 CANC will be held at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center located at 2233 Ventura Street in downtown Fresno on May 14 & 15, 2014.  The registration fee is $150.00 (pre-registered) or $200.00 (after May 5, 2014).  The fee will be refunded in full if notification is received by May 5, 2014.  The registration fee includes one copy of the conference proceedings, lunch and entry to the industry social hour and dinner on May 14th, and breakfast and lunch on May 15th.  The registration fee for students is $50.00.  The fee includes one copy of the proceedings, lunch and entry to the industry social hour and dinner on May 14th and breakfast and lunch on May 15th.  Those who require hotel accommodations should make their own reservations.  A number of rooms have been blocked at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center at a reduced rate of $118.00.  The hotel phone number is (559) 268-1000.  Reservations must be made by April 22, 2014 to receive the reduced rate.

Following the Technical Symposium sponsored by Elanco Animal Health on Wednesday, the CANC Committee, along with major industry firms, will sponsor the Animal Nutrition Conference.  A poster session displaying the results of research conducted by the universities will be on display throughout the conference.  Awards will be presented to the winners on Thursday.  Please stop by and view the posters.

• A.R.P.A.S. Members:  Approved Continuing Education Credits:
• CANC 6 CEU's / Technical Symposium 4 CEU's  
• On-Line Registration Form
• CANC Program and Speaker Details