Animal By-Products Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003

PART IIIRESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS TO ANIMAL BY-PRODUCTS AND THEIR USE

Access to animal by-products

9.—(1) A person shall not feed any animal by-product (other than liquid milk or colostrums used on the farm of origin) to any farmed animal, or any other ruminant animal, pig or poultry, unless it has been processed in an approved Category 3 processing plant.

(2) A person shall not allow any farmed animal, or any other ruminant animal, pig or poultry, to have access to any animal by-product (other than milk, colostrum or manure) unless it has been –

(a)processed in an approved processing plant;

(b)treated in an approved biogas or composting plant; or

(c)(in the case of digestive tract content) applied to land at least three weeks before the access.

(3) A person shall not bring any animal by-product (other than milk, colostrum, manure or digestive tract content) on to any premises where any farmed animal, or any other ruminant animal, pig or poultry, is kept, unless it has been –

(a)processed in an approved processing plant; or

(b)treated in an approved biogas or composting plant.

(4) The preceding paragraph shall not apply to –

(a)animal by-products brought on to premises in a vehicle which enters to collect other by-products providing the by-products brought onto the premises are not removed from the vehicle while on the premises; or

(b)animal by-products brought onto collection centres, petfood plants, incinerators or other approved premises which are situated on the same premises as the animals specified in that paragraph and which were in operation on 1st November 2002 provided that the animals do not have access to the by-products.

(5) A person shall not allow any animals to have access to material in a biogas or composting plant, provided that wild birds may have access to the material during the secondary and subsequent phase of composting.

(6) In this regulation “animal by-product” includes catering waste of all kinds, including catering waste to which the Community Regulation does not apply because of Article 1(2)(e) of that Regulation.

(7) This regulation does not prohibit feeding animal by-products to animals under Article 23(2) of the Community Regulation as enforced by regulation 26(3).

(8) A person who contravenes any provision of this regulation shall be guilty of an offence.

Restrictions on use

10.  Subject to regulation 12(1), a person who contravenes Article 22(1) of the Community Regulation shall be guilty of an offence.

Pasture land

11.—(1) For the purposes of Article 22(1)(c) of the Community Regulation, pasture land is land that is intended to be used for grazing or cropping for feedingstuffs following the application or deposit of organic fertilisers and soil improvers within the following periods –

(a)two months in the case of pigs; and

(b)three weeks in the case of other farmed animals.

(2) A person who –

(a)uses pasture land for grazing within the period specified in paragraph (1); or

(b)feeds to pigs or other farmed animals within that period anything cropped from pasture land during that period;

shall be guilty of an offence.

Intra-species recycling of fish

12.—(1) Notwithstanding regulation 10, it shall not be an offence under these Regulations to feed fish with processed animal protein derived from the bodies or parts of bodies of fish (other than farmed fish of the same species) if this is done in accordance with Articles 2 to 4 of, and Annex I to, Commission Regulation (EC) No. 811/2003.

(2) The Department shall be the competent authority for the purposes of Article 5 of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 811/2003.

(3) In accordance with Article 10 of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 811/2003, this regulation shall not apply until 1st January 2004.