REPUBLIC ACT No. 1556
An Act to Regulate and Control the Manufacture, Importation, Labelling, Advertising and Sale of Livestock and Poultry Feeds
Livestock and Poultry Feeds Act
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippine Congress Assembled:
Section 1
This Act shall be known as the "Livestock and Poultry Feeds Act."
Section 2. Enforcing Official
This Act shall be administered by the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources thru the Director, Bureau of Animal Industry.
Section 3. Definitions
For the purpose of this Act, the following terms shall mean:
(a)"Secretary" means the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
(b)"Director" means the Director, Bureau of Animal Industry.
(c)"Livestock" means and includes horses, cattle carabaos, sheep, goats, swine, rabbits, poultry and such other animals or birds as the Secretary may, from time to time by regulation, prescribe.
(d)"Feeds" or "Feeding Stuff" shall include all such articles used for the purpose of feeding purporting to supply proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, vitamins, antibiotics and/or correcting nutritional disorders. Such articles may be locally produced or imported, mixed or in the form of simple ingredients.
(e)"Owner" is the person, firm, partnership, association or corporation applying for the accord registration under this Act.
(f)"Brand" means any distinctive mark or name applied to a feed or feeding stuff.
(g)"Inspector" is any person authorized to enforce the provisions of this Act.
(h)"Package" means sack, bag, barrel, bin or any other container for feeds.
(i)"Label" means and includes any written, printed or graphic matter attached or affixed to any package, bale or bundle of feeds.
(j)"Regulation" means rules prescribed under the authority of this Act.
(k)"Analyst" means any official analyst appointed under this Act.
(l)"Ingredients" means any single article of feed or feeding stuff which enters into the composition of a ration, concentrate, or supplement.
(m)"Mixtures" means any combination of two or more food ingredients used in the manufacture of feeding stuff.
(n)"Concentrates" shall apply to no materials other than those known as concentrates, and shall include linseed meals, cotton-seed meals, pea meals, bean meals, peanut meals, coconut meals, gluten meals, velvet bean meals, soya bean meals, dried yeast grains, dried vinegar grains, corn germ meal, feeding molasses, gluten feeds, cotton seed feeds, maize feeds, velvet bean feeds, peanut feeds, dried distillers grains, dried brewers grains, malt sprout, hominy feeds, rice meals, corn and oat chops, corn feed meal, corn bran, corn and cob meals, wheat bran, wheat middlings, wheat feed, rye feed, rye middlings, buckwheat middlings and bucket wheat feed, ground beef or fish scraps, meat meals, meat and bone meals mixed, dried blood, milk by-products, mixed feeds, propriety or trade-marked stock and poultry feeds, and all other materials of a similar nature; but shall not include the materials defined in this article as roughages, the whole seed nor pure whole seed nor pure whole grains ground together nor the unmixed meals, made directly from the entire grains of wheat, rye, barley, oat, corn, buckwheat and boom corn, nor malt sprouts, when sold as such by the maltster at retail, nor ground or cracked bone not mixed with any other substance, nor shall it include poultry feeds consisting of whole or whole and cracked grains mixed together, with or without grit, oyster shells or charcoal, when all the ingredients may be identified by the naked eye.
(o)"Roughages" shall include dried and ground hays and straws, dried and ground corn stalks or other parts of the corn plant not included in the grain, dried beet pulp, oat hulls, barley hulls, clipped oat by-product, sorghum plant by-products and flax plant by-products, cotton seed hulls, buckwheat hulls, cocoa shells, grain screenings or other materials of a similar character. This shall not include whole ground grains not mixed with any other substances.
Section 4. Registration
(a)Any person, partnership, firm, corporation or association desiring to engage in the manufacture, importation, sale or distribution of feeds or feeding stuffs shall first be registered in the Office of the Director.
(b)Applications for registration or annual renewal thereof, shall be made by the person, partnership, firm, corporation or association marketing, manufacturing, or importing such feeds or feeding stuffs, or by his accredited agent in such form and manner as may be prescribed from time to time by regulation.
(c)An application for registration shall be accompanied by a registration fee of five pesos for a person, firm, partnership, corporation or association engaged in the retailing or distribution of commercial feeds or feeding stuffs, and one hundred pesos for manufacturers and/or importers of commercial feeds or feeding stuffs.
(d)No feeds or feeding stuffs in the form of complete mixture, concentrate, supplement, or ingredient which have not been registered with the Director, shall be manufactured, imported, advertised, sold or offered for sale or held in possession for sale in the Philippines.
(e)No commercial feeds or feeding stuffs shall be registered:
1.If the brand thereof is identical, or will likely be confused, with another brand already applied to a registered feeding stuff;
2.If the specific name of each and every ingredient of mixtures, base or concentrates, and supplement is not clearly stated; or
3.If the feeds or feeding stuffs do not conform to the provisions of this Act.
(f)No change in the brand of a registered feed or feeding stuff shall be made without a written notification to the Director.
(g)The Director is empowered to recommend to the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources the cancellation of the registration of any feed or feeding stuff which is found after proper investigation to be not in conformity with the provisions of this Act, in registration, importation, manufacture, distribution, labelling, advertising or sale.
Section 5. Labelling
Every package containing feed or feeding stuff shall be labelled as follows:
1.The original label or tag of imported feeds or feeding stuffs shall remain attached to each package. In the event that the original label or tag has been lost or otherwise removed during the transit, a new label or tag shall be attached with the approval of the Director to all bags intended for sale.
2.Labels of imported feed ingredients intended for sale shall show conspicuously and clearly:
(a)Net weight.
(b)Brand.
(c)Name of article.
(d)Name and address of manufacturer or supplier.
(e)Minimum crude protein (except mineral mixtures).
(f)Minimum fat (except mineral mixtures).
(g)Maximum fiber (except mineral mixtures).
(h)Maximum moisture.
(i)Registration number of importer.
3.Labels of imported feed mixtures intended for sale shall show conspicuously and clearly:
(a)Net weight.
(b)Name and address of manufacturer and supplier.
(c)Brand.
(d)Nutritive purpose.
(e)Minimum crude protein (except in mineral mixtures).
(f)Minimum fat (except in mineral mixtures).
(g)Maximum fiber (except in mineral mixtures).
(h)Maximum moisture.
(i)Names of all ingredients used in the mixture.
(j)Registration number of importer.
4.Labels of feed mixtures manufactured locally shall show conspicuously and clearly:
(a)Net weight.
(b)Name and address of manufacturer.
(c)Brand.
(d)Nutritive purpose.
(e)Minimum crude protein (except mineral mixtures).
(f)Maximum fiber (except in mineral mixtures).
(g)Maximum fat (except in mineral mixtures).
(h)Maximum moisture.
(i)Names of ingredients used in the mixtures.
(j)Registration number of manufacturer.
5.Labels of local grains and/or their by-products, minerals, and other ingredients sold or to be sold for feed shall show conspicuously and clearly:
(a)Net weight.
(b)Name of feed (e.g., rice bran, yellow corn, white corn, ipil-ipil, copra, shell powder, rice hay, etc.) (c) Conditions: i.e., whole grain cracked, middlings, ground fine or coarse, etc.
(d)Class: i.e., first, second or third (as prescribed by standard set by the Director).
(e)Name and address of store.
(f)Registration number of store owner.
6.Labels of any other feed not covered in the preceding paragraphs shall be made according to regulations, which from time to time may be prescribed by the Director with the approval of the Secretary.
Section 6
There should be created in the manner authorized by law an adequate section or division composed of employees taken from the present personnel of the Bureau of Animal Industry as the Director may consider necessary for effectively carrying out the provisions of this Act.
Section 7
An inspector shall be permitted at all reasonable times to enter any premises in which feeds are sold or held in possession for sale or when he has reasonable cause to believe any feed or feeding stuff is being prepared or has been prepared for sale, and may take for analysis samples of any feed or feeding stuff there found without cost.
Section 8. Regulations
The Director, subject to the approval of the Secretary, shall promulgate rules and regulations:
(a)Prescribing the basis under which grains and their by-products may be classified;
(b)Providing for the prevention of false and/or misleading claims that may be made for any feeding stuff;
(c)Prescribing the definition and uses of such terms as complete ration, concentrate supplement and/or base as used in livestock nutrition;
(d)Prescribing disposition of damaged feed or feeding stuff; and (e) Prescribing methods of procuring and analysis of samples according to accepted standard procedure, and such other rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this Act.
Section 9. Fees and Expenditures
(a)Aside from the registration fees as provided in section four, subsection (c) of this Act, there shall be collected an inspection fee at the rate of twenty centavos per metric ton of all complete mixed feeds, supplement, and/or concentrates.
(b)All fees, charges and other income derived from the operation of this Act, shall accrue to the Philippine Livestock Promotion Fund as provided in Commonwealth Act Numbered One hundred and eighteen, as amended, and shall be deposited with the National Treasury to the credit of the said fund.
(c)All expenditures necessary to carry out the purposes of this Act shall be paid from the unalloted balance of the Philippine Livestock Promotion Fund created under Commonwealth Act Numbered One hundred and eighteen, as amended.
Section 10. Offense and Penalties
(a)It shall be unlawful for any person, partnership, firm, corporation or association to engage in the manufacture, importation, sale or distribution of feeds or feeding stuffs without having first registered in the Office of the Director of Animal Industry: Provided, However, That the provisions of this Act shall not apply to the sale or distribution of the by-products of grains, such as rice bran, rice crush, corn bran and corn crush, which are sold in their natural state as feeding stuff without having been further processed, mixed with other ingredients, or otherwise manufactured into another form.
(b)Any person, partnership, corporation or association which will unlawfully use a registration number, fraudulently lessen or adulterate the feeding value of any feed or feeding stuff, or tamper with packaged feeds for fraudulent purposes, wilfully remove, alter, or efface the prescribed tags, labels, markings, or other information placed on packages of feeds or feeding stuffs, fraudulently alter or use certificates of analysis of any official analyst; wilfully obstruct, hinder, resist or in any other way oppose an inspector in the execution of his duties under this Act; make unauthorized disposition of feeds placed under detention; import, manufacture, distribute, advertise, sell, or offer for sale or possess for sale by any feed which does not conform with or contravenes the provisions of this Act; or otherwise violate any provision of this Act and the rules and regulations issued thereunder, shall be punished by a fine of not less than one thousand pesos and not more than five thousand pesos or by imprisonment of not more than one year and one day, or by both, in the discretion of the court.
Section 11
All Acts or parts thereof inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed.
Section 12
This Act shall take effect after thirty days from the date of its approval.
Approved: June 16, 1956.
For information and research only, and not legal advice. This text may not reflect later amendments. For certified copies, refer to the Official Gazette or the issuing agency.