The Association of American Feed Control Officials and the US Food and Drug Administration have agreed to extend the organizations' Memorandum of Understanding until September 1, 2015.
The American Feed Industry Association says it has worked with Congress, FDA and industry stakeholders to insert the AAFCO Official Publication into the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to counter the effects of the Food and Drug Administration Act of 2007, which used the term “ingredient standards” and told FDA to develop rules for petfood ingredient standards. FDA was to extend that to all animal foods, as it regulates feed and petfood the same. However, AFIA says the problem has been that the “standards” were not defined in the law, and AAFCO uses the term “definitions,” as does state feed law based on the AAFCO Model Feed Bill.
AFIA coordinated letters to be sent to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg from AAFCO, 17 state feed and grain associations, and eight major animal agriculture trade associations expressing their support for fixing this issue either administratively or via a legislative fix.
According to AFIA: "This agreement comes as FDA is committed to ensuring that the industry will have the ingredient review/approval processes it needs while the permanent fix is agreed upon and able to be enacted. More information will be coming...as we work out the details of the permanent fix."