The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs plans to revise the animal epidemic prevention conditions in five types of places, such as farms.

　　Data map: pigsty. China News Agency issued Wei Liang photo

　　BEIJING, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) According to the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in order to standardize the review of animal epidemic prevention conditions and prevent and control animal diseases, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs recently issued the Measures for the Review of Animal Epidemic Prevention Conditions (Revised Draft for Comment). The exposure draft makes it clear that the administrative confirmation procedure with risk assessment as a tool should be introduced in the site selection of five types of places, such as animal farms.

　　The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said that since the implementation of the original Measures in 2010, it has played an important role in strengthening the management of animal epidemic prevention, improving the level of animal epidemic prevention in various places, and ensuring the production safety and public health safety of aquaculture. However, in recent years, there are some problems in the implementation of the provisions on the location distance of five types of places, such as farms, which need to be revised.

　　Because the epidemic prevention conditions of five kinds of places, such as farms, are closely related to the natural barriers, artificial barriers, administrative divisions, breeding environment and animal distribution around them, the unified site selection distance can not cover the influence of the above factors, so it is necessary to adopt a more scientific and effective way to evaluate the animal epidemic prevention conditions.

　　In addition, due to the uneven level of economic development in different regions and the high level of urbanization in some regions, many completed animal farms can’t meet the requirements of site selection distance and can’t pass the examination of epidemic prevention conditions, resulting in a low proportion of the Certificate of Animal Epidemic Prevention Conditions, and it is difficult to achieve the goal of promoting the level of epidemic prevention management through the examination of epidemic prevention conditions.

　　The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs mentioned that meeting the needs of restoring and developing pig production is also one of the reasons for the revision. Since 2019, the number of fertile sows and pigs has dropped a lot, and the pressure of stable production and supply has been greater. Recently, all localities are actively developing pig production in accordance with the unified arrangements of the State Council, but some areas are short of land resources, and it is difficult to solve the problem of land use for new breeding sites without adjusting the requirements of site selection distance for animal epidemic prevention conditions.

　　In this draft for comments, the relevant provisions on site selection distance have been deleted. Articles 5, 10 (1) and 2), 11, 15, and 20, as well as articles 24 (1) and 25 (1), concerning the location distance of five types of places such as farms, have been deleted. At the same time, one paragraph is added to Article 2 of the Measures to clarify that the location of five types of places, such as animal farms, should be determined according to the results of risk assessment.

　　This exposure draft also clarified the requirements for site selection risk assessment. Referring to the law on the prevention and control of infectious diseases and the legislative practice of animal epidemic prevention regulations in Gansu, Dalian and other places, the administrative confirmation procedure with risk assessment as a tool is introduced in the site selection process to strengthen the service and guidance for various places before construction.

　　At the same time, in accordance with the relevant requirements of the reform of "separation of licenses" in the State Council, the time limit for the materials and on-site review of the establishment of animal farms, breeding communities and animal slaughtering and processing places in the Measures was reduced from 20 working days to 15 working days.