It is the importer’s responsibility to ensure that the feed is safe
You, as an importer, are responsible for ensuring that the feed is safe. You must follow the regulations that apply to safe feed. The feed should not present a health hazard to humans or animals, and should not make food from food-producing animals hazardous or unsuitable as food. The feed should also not spread plant pests or unwanted plants. It should be noted that it is not allowed to import seeds of wild oat (Avena fatua) or products containing wild oat. Furthermore is it to this date not allowed to import genetically modified feeds.
You need to make sure that the feed comes from regions that do not have any restriction because of the animal health situation. The Norwegian Veterinary Institute have done a risk assessment of import from the EU (in Norwegian). Due to the risk assessment, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority only recommend to import haw and straw from Sweden, Finland and parts of Iceland.
It is a high risk to import hay and straw from countries where the African swine fever virus occurs.
Risk-reducing measures
Additionally we suggest these risk-reducing measures for the import of feed:
- Import from areas with low ruminant population
- Import from areas where the feed to be imported has been produced without animal manure during the last two years
- Import from areas that can document low prevalence or no prevalence of contagious threats evaluated in the risk analysis
- Import from farms that practice high stubbing during harvesting
- Sorting of fodder which is of poor quality or contaminated with soil and other organic matter than hay, straw and silage
- Importing fodder which is ensilaged
You must be registered
You must be registered at the Norwegian Food Safety Authority so that we can control your compliance with the rules. Once you are registered, users of the feed (farmers and horse teams) can purchase feed from you. Remember also that you only can trade feed from feed businesses that are registered in the member state of origin.
You can find the relevant forms via this website.
Feed business
To register as a feed business, use the form " Ny fôrvarevirksomhet” (New feed business) . Select the "Fôrvarer – omsetning” (Feed – Sales) activity, or "Fôrvarer – transport” (Feed – Transport) activity if you want to register transport. Here you must declare that you have understood the requirements of the regulations and that you follow them.
Importer
To register as an importer, use the form "New Importer". Select the item group "12.14.9091" for import of hay, "12.13.0001" for straw, or "12.14.9099" for silage-based fodder forage. There is normally duty on "12.14.9099", however it is possible to obtain duty free import of silage-based fodder by contacting the Norwegian Agricultural Directorate.
The first recipient also need to register as «første mottaker» (first recipient).
Plant health and alien species
Plant health and invasive alien species are areas not covered by the EEA-regulation.
Importers of hay/straw product(s) have to declare that the hay/straw product(s) does (do) not contain seeds from wild oats (Avena fatua) with germination ability. There no special form for this declaration.
The feed and the packaging should be free from soil.
The importer also have duty of care when it comes to preventing introduction and spread of alien species. For questions contact The Norwegian Environment Agency.
GMO
Feed produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not permitted in Norway without the approval of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. No genetically modified feed products are approved in Norway by July 2018.