Exporting plant-based feed to China? Sign up to get on the facility list

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have signed an agreement giving USDA authority to certify animal feed and pet food products for export to foreign countries.

As a first step in the implementation of this agreement, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service is operating a program to facilitate the export of processed plant-based feed products from the United States to China in accordance with the requirements established by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China. This is in direct support of implementation of AQSIQ’s regulation on imported feed, known as Decree 118. Implementation of this decree has been broken down into eight product groups that are implemented separately, one of which is processed plant-based feed products.

China defines processed plant-based feed products as feed derived from grain and oil crops, such as wheat bran, bran coat, soybean cake/meal, peanut cake/meal, rapeseed cake/meal, cottonseed cake/meal, sunflower cake/meal, safflower seed cake/meal, linseed cake/meal, coconut cake/meal, palm cake/meal, DDGS from maize or cassava and beet pulp. Excluded are forage grasses and raw feed grains.

The American Feed Industry Association supports this new agreement.

Under Decree 118, AQSIQ requirements mandate U.S. exporters of processed plant-based feed products meet these criteria in order to pass a customs inspection into China:

1. The exported product must originate from a registered U.S. facility
2. The registered facility may be subject to audits by AQSIQ officials
3. The exported product must be accompanied by a shipment-by-shipment certificate, which will be negotiated and determined after an industry audit is conducted by AQSIQ.

To address these criteria, AMS has developed a web-based application to generate a list of registered U.S. plant-based feed facilities for Chinese authorities. For those interested in beginning or continuing to ship processed plant-based feed products to China, complete the AMS online application.

AMS will evaluate the plant-based feed facility’s application before adding it to the list of registered facilities. The list will then be submitted to Chinese officials. Applications through AMS’s system will be accepted on a rolling basis, and updated facility lists will be available to Chinese officials through the AMS website.

AQSIQ will use this registered facility list to determine what facilities it will audit as part of the second criteria set forth by Decree 118. Not all registered facilities will be audited by AQSIQ; however, any facility on the list may be subject to an audit. Being on this initial registration list is only the first step to a processed plant-based feed product becoming approved for export to China. Final approval will be decided after AQSIQ’s determination of certification requirements for these products.

Details surrounding the pending registered facility audits by AQSIQ and the certification requirements are still being negotiated by the U.S. government and China. The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service will work with AMS to provide updated information on those requirements as it becomes available.