(2) what assessment he has made of the effects of the feeding of dead poultry parts to poultry on the risk of infection of (a) avian influenza and (b) other conditions;
(3) what estimate he has made of the tonnage of feed for poultry which was recycled from dead poultry parts in England in the most recent 12 months for which figures are available.
Under EU-wide Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)-related feed ban controls, introduced in 2001, most processed animal proteins, including those derived from poultry, have been prohibited from use in any farmed animal feed. This builds on longer-standing controls on mammalian-derived processed animal proteins.
Separate controls, in place since 2002 under the EU Animal By-Products Regulations, prohibit processed animal proteins from being recycled back to the same species they are derived from. These controls mean that feeding poultry using recycled processed animal protein derived from dead poultry is not permitted, either in the UK or in any other member state. Additionally, no poultry feed containing processed animal protein derived from poultry may be imported either into the UK, or into any other member state.
Neither pigs nor poultry, as naturally omnivorous animals, have been shown in experiments to be orally susceptible to BSE, and no naturally occurring Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy have yet been identified in these species. Nevertheless, the principle of preventing intra-species recycling of processed animal protein in feed will continue to apply to all farmed animal species both now and in the future.