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Avoiding Stockfeed Residues

The onus is now on all producers to ensure that when marketing their livestock they meet food safety standards for pesticide residues.

By Department of Primary Industries - 8th February 2006 - Back to News

The onus is now on all producers to ensure that when marketing their livestock they meet food safety standards for pesticide residues. The Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) system introduced under the safe3meat banner provides a documented system based on the National Vendor Declaration (NVD) waybill that requires the livestock manager to declare certain feeding practices. A single producer making a false declaration runs the risk of causing serious disruption for the entire Australian export meat industry. There are also significant penalties for making false declarations on an NVD.

Recent calls to the Department of Primary Industries indicate that there is still a degree of uncertainty on how to make correct declarations and what to do when stock are accidentally exposed to feed where a Withholding Period (WHP) has not expired.

Question four on the NVD form asks the stock manager whether the listed stock have been fed any by-product stockfeeds in the past 60 days. The explanatory notes with the NVD form identify possible by-products as any material from vegetable, fruit and fibre crops including peels, pressings and stems. The risk for meat production is that many of the pesticides routinely used on these crops are unique to those industries and any minute detection in meat could exceed food safety standards and may lead to a repeat of the Helix in cotton trash incident of a few years back.

It is not reckless to feed these by-products to stock and on the contrary where they provide cost effective nutrition, just as long as the NVD is correctly filled out by declaring the feeding and including an analysts report if available. A higher level of assurance can be gained by insisting on the by-product supplier providing a completed By-product Vendor Declaration form that is available from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA).

For conventional feeds such as grain and hay a Commodity Vendor Declaration is also available from MLA and should in this day and age accompany every transaction of primary stockfeed. If the vendor cannot or will not supply a form then the purchaser has no quality guarantee and they must accept responsibility themselves for any later contamination issue.

One aspect of the Commodity Vendor Declaration form that may be sensitive is a requirement to identify neighbouring crops grown within 100 metres from the commodity crop. While there is no requirement to list the specific chemicals used on the neighbouring crop the statement allows the commodity purchaser to review the potential risk from their own general knowledge. One example would include where commodities originate from a vegetable production area in which endosulfan is used. In this case, further inquiries may be required or confirmation testing of the feed may be advised.

Purchasing pellets and meals from a stockfeed manufacturer is no guarantee the product meets acceptable standards unless the mill also obtains Commodity and By-product Vendor Declarations from all of its suppliers. Instead, several of the more progressive mills undertake a limited range of pesticide testing of random feed samples. However this is restricted by the high costs involved. These mills are usually members of the Stock Feed Manufacturers’ Association of Victoria and may be accredited with the FeedSafe quality assurance program.

Members of the Australian Fodder Industry Association Inc will on request, provide a Vendor Declaration to their purchaser clients that lists the chemicals that have been applied to the crop.

As there are no broad grain or fodder quality assurance programs that routinely provide vendor declarations on residue status, it is the responsibility of stock managers to request documentation in order that they can fulfil their obligations when completing an NVD.

Question eight on the NVD refers specifically to endosulfan spray risk and stipulates grazing risk zones lasting for 10 weeks downwind 750 metres from an aerial target area and 200 metres for ground spraying. Apart from horticultural crops, Victorian livestock producers should note that this could include canola and cereals sprayed pre-planting for earth-mite control.

Accidental grazing of areas sprayed with agricultural chemicals prior to the grazing WHP expiry can happen despite good intentions, and the stock must then be either withheld from sale for at least 60 days or a written statement provided to the purchaser such as in the form of an NVD. The risk with the latter option is that a meat buyer may well decline the sale or discount the price to cover testing costs. The sale of stock without notifying the purchaser in writing that a WHP has not expired is a serious offence.

It is not considered good practice to leave stock in a paddock while spraying occurs and there are only a few exceptions to this general rule, which are always stipulated on the product label, for instance, in some plague locust situations where there is a specific WHP from slaughter stated for over-sprayed stock. In these cases, the grazing WHP may be longer than those that would ordinarily apply. In the case of insecticides for plague locust control, there are recommended Export Animal Feed Intervals, Slaughter Intervals and Grazing Intervals that have been established in addition to label statements.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: support@gippsland.com

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