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Biosecurity and Food Assurance Authorities

The MAF Reg of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is being divided into two new Authorities: the Biosecurity Authority and the Food Assurance Authority.

Biosecurity Authority

The Biosecurity Authority will be responsible for administering the Biosecurity Act 1993. It will be concerned with the animal and plant health status of New Zealand and the eradication or effective management of pests and unwanted organisms. It will control the importation of risk goods that may harbour or contain pests or unwanted organisms, and implement contingency plans to eradicate or control unwanted organisms that may be inadvertently introduced into New Zealand. It will also implement specific national pest management strategies and take an overview of the administration of national and regional pest management strategies.

While this responsibility focuses on the movement of risk goods into New Zealand, the Authority will also be responsible for reporting on New Zealand's health status and providing zoosanitary/phytosanitary assurances required for exported animals, plants and primary produce. For convenience the Authority will also administer the Animals Protection Act 1967 (to be replaced by the Animal Welfare Act later in 1999) to ensure that society's expectations for the welfare of animals are met.

The Biosecurity Authority will set the risk parameters and thresholds for both agricultural security and animal welfare. The thresholds will be the same as those that have been endorsed by Cabinet and published in previous ACVM public documents. However, the Authority will be responsible for specifying matters such as:

• the biosecurity information requirements for the registration of trade name products;

• the biosecurity clearance of imported agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines;

• the security and produce disposal requirements for provisional registrations where there may be biosecurity hazards; and

• the diseases of animals that are characterised by significant pain or distress, prompting welfare concerns.

The ACVM Group will work closely with the Biosecurity Authority to ensure that regulatory control of agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines is meeting the agricultural security and animal welfare expectations in an effective and efficient manner.

Food Assurance Authority

The Food Assurance Authority will be made up of those parts of MAF Reg that were responsible for ensuring that primary produce complies with domestic standards for food and overseas import requirements for safety, wholesomeness and truth in labelling.

As a new function transferred from the Ministry of Health, the Food Authority will also be responsible for administering the Food Act 1981. This is in addition to administering the Meat Act 1981 (to be replaced by the Animal Products Act later this year) and the Dairy Industry Act 1952, and extends the Authority's interest to all food products on the domestic market.

The Food Assurance Authority will be responsible for setting the domestic and export food safety risk parameters and thresholds for the regulatory control of agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines. These will be the same as those already endorsed by Cabinet, but the Food Assurance Authority will be responsible for specifying the domestic and relevant maximum residue limits for substances that may be in agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines. They will also specify any other criteria that must be taken into consideration when regulating such products.

The ACVM Group will be part of the Food Assurance Authority and will have two main and distinct functions:

• regulating agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines under the ACVM Act (Animal Remedies, Stock Foods, Pesticides and Fertilisers Acts until the ACVM Act commences); and

• specifying the maximum residue limits for substances in the domestic food residue standards set under the Food Act 1981 (see page 5).

As part of the Food Assurance Authority the ACVM Group will still look to the other Groups in the Authority with responsibilities for particular kinds of primary produce (meat and seafood, dairy, honey, eggs, plant produce etc) for the criteria that must be met when regulating agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines. However, the function of setting maximum residue limits has been placed in the ACVM Group itself to ensure that there is a coordinated perspective on the management of domestic and trade risks associated with residues.

It is expected that the creation of the Food Assurance Authority will provide an opportunity to integrate the management of hazards posed by agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines with a consolidated perspective of the risks posed to primary produce and domestic food products. The challenge will be to ensure that a close working relationship with the Biosecurity Authority can be maintained to ensure that biosecurity and animal welfare hazards can be managed equally well.