Livestock feed controls review: consultation

Executive summary

Livestock feed controls in Scotland protect both livestock and public health. The strict controls ensure that livestock feed is kept free from disease. The Scottish Government wish to ensure that these controls continue to be effective, proportionate and based on the latest scientific evidence. This consultation focuses on the risk of spreading transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) in livestock feed.

TSEs are a group of fatal neurological diseases that affect both animals and humans. TSEs notably include scrapie in sheep and goats, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - also known as ‘Mad Cow disease’ - in cattle, chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans.

The first case of BSE in the United Kingdom (UK) occurred in 1986 and since then there have been just over 180,000 confirmed cases of BSE in cattle in the UK. Classical BSE occurs through the consumption of feed contaminated with the BSE agent. It is considered zoonotic (transmissible to humans) due to its assumed link with vCJD through the consumption of contaminated meat.

The strict TSE control measures introduced in the UK are currently in Regulation (EC) No 999/2001^[1], which is assimilated direct legislation. This means that they are regulations that Scotland kept after EU-Exit. They prohibit animal protein from being fed to farmed animals, with very limited exceptions (See Appendix 1 for more detail). This prevents TSE agents being recycled back into the ruminant (animals that chew the cud such as cattle, sheep and deer) population. Compliance with these feed controls is also monitored by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) through the National Feed Audit^[2] (NFA).

These livestock feed controls, alongside other TSE control measures, have greatly reduced the incidence of TSE in the UK. The UK has had just five cases of classical BSE since 2014.

Our understanding of TSEs and how they are transmitted has also increased greatly in this time, and the livestock feed regulations no longer reflect current scientific knowledge or the level of TSE risk.

Although these controls are effective, they were made in a precautionary manner, when little was known about BSE. Since then, research has demonstrated that pigs^[3] and poultry^[4] are not naturally susceptible to TSEs^{[5], [6]} and improvements in feed testing methods allow the NFA to differentiate between ruminant and non-ruminant proteins if found in feed^{[7], [8], [9]}. As pigs and poultry are naturally omnivorous, they have evolved to eat a diverse range of food of both plant and animal origin.

In 2021 the European Union (EU) therefore amended its TSE legislation to allow the use of a wider range of animal proteins in non-ruminant animal feed. The EU has allowed:

• Poultry processed animal protein (PAP) in porcine feed
• Porcine PAP in poultry feed
• Insect PAP in pig and poultry feed
• Ruminant collagen and gelatine (C&G) in non-ruminant feed.

These amendments are part of the EU TSE roadmap^[10] to review TSE controls, in the light of the reduced incidence of TSEs and increased knowledge of the diseases. The UK supported the roadmap when it was an EU member.

To work towards our commitments to growing the economy and tackling climate change, the Scottish Government wishes to consult on making the same changes to Scottish legislation.

These changes would allow our legislation to reflect current scientific evidence and advice, and allow business innovation in the animal feed sector, especially in the research and development of insect protein. They would also allow the Scottish Government to support industry in achieving sustainable farming goals by reducing reliance on imported soyabean and fishmeal protein for poultry and pig feed. It would also create trade opportunities with EU when new products are developed.

These changes have been risk assessed by APHA and, if implemented, will not impact on Scotland’s high level of animal and public health protection. Key protections will remain in place, including the banning of PAP of ruminant origin being fed to ruminants, a requirement by the World Organisation for Animal Health^[11] (WOAH). Animal By-product (ABP) regulations^[12] would still prohibit intra-species recycling (i.e. feeding PAP or other material made from an animal to the same species of animal).