September 11, 2008

China has promulgated its first set of green standards for poultry production  - these include green standards for animal hygiene, animal drugs and feeds and additives.

The standards were set by China's Green Foods Development Centre and approved by the Agriculture Ministry.

Poultry products based on these standards have been commercially rolled out, signifying the formalisation of China's Green Standards.

The standards comprises standards for Animal Hygiene, Feed and Feed additives and Veterinary Health.

Under the Green Animal Hygiene standards, all stock on poultry farms must come from one source within one shipment and all stock must be slaughtered during harvest. The new standards also includes sanitisation, bird flu and other disease measures. Standards for checking for disease meat before and after slaughter wee also included.

Feed and feed additive standards stipulate that at least 90 percent of the animal feed must come from sustainable production farms, with no chemical feed additives and no mammalian protein fed to ruminant animals. The green standards also forbid any chemically synthesized fatty acids or transgenic feed materials. It also sets strict limits on chemical dyes or stabilisers and preservatives. 

The Green Standards for animal drugs approved just 19 kinds of drugs out of the hundreds available in the market. 

The standards removed fluoroquinolones, ionophores and tetracycline from the list of approved animal drugs.

The introduction of the three standards is expected to provide a guiding platform for China's animal breeding enterprises and serve to improve China's meat safety.