The Food & Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine has released “Guidance for Industry No. 203 Ensuring Safety of Animal Feed Maintained & Fed On-Farm,” which is available at www.fda.gov/downloads/AnimalVeterinary/GuidanceComplianceEnforcement/GuidanceforIndustry/UCM438641.pdf.

The guidance is intended to help animal producers develop procedures and practices to ensure the use of safe feed in animal production, FDA said. It applies to all feed offered to farm animals (including all food-producing animals and horses), whether the feed is obtained from commercial suppliers or produced on the farm. It also applies to products consumed by animals during pasture grazing, pre- or post-harvest grazing, free-range feeding and forage crop feeding.

In general, FDA’s guidance documents do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities but, instead, describe the agency’s current thinking on a topic and should be viewed only as recommendations, unless specific regulatory or statutory requirements are cited.