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As a producer, harvester or hunter, am I covered by the Animal Products Act?

Animal production systems (farming, harvesting, growing etc) come under the Animal Products Act. The following aspects apply as appropriate:

1. Producers, harvesters and hunters are supplying animal material for processing into products for human or animal consumption. To ensure product safety, some basic requirements are needed to ensure that the animals or animal material are suitable for processing. Under the Animal Products Regulations 2000 there are regulations relating to animal material suitability. There are also requirements relating to the supply of animals, including various supplier declarations, set out in the Animal Products (Specifications for Products Intended for Human Consumption) Notice 2004.
2. Potential contamination of animal products from chemical residues in the animals supplied is also a concern. The contaminant monitoring and surveillance programme addresses these concerns and enables various controls to be applied such as animal material sampling and testing, and animal movement controls.
3. Hunters supplying game for processing and trade are required to be certified as having a basic knowledge/competency regarding animal health and environmental contaminants.
4. Game estates that are supplying animal material for processing and trade are required to be listed by Part 5A of the Animal Products Act and the game estate is required to have at least one person who is certified as having a basic knowledge/competency regarding animal health and environmental contaminants.
5. Part 6 of the Act relates to the activity of homekill and recreational catch. The basic policy is that owners of animals kill their own animals, and recreational hunters and fishermen can kill/catch game and fish provided the meat/fish is for their own use and is not traded.

Finally, the Animal Products Act has provision for overseas market access requirements to be applied to the supplier/producer if necessary. An example of this is the requirements around the administering of hormonal growth promotants (HGP) which are imposed in New Zealand to ensure that no HGP treated animal product is sent to Europe.

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