The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is placing new restrictions on importation of horses from South Korea (here) and poultry from Lebanon (here), it said. Restrictions on importation of horses and other equines from South Korea, implemented because of an outbreak of contagious equine metritis, takes effect retroactively as of May 7, 2015. Restrictions on imports of live poultry, poultry meat and other poultry products from Lebanon, put in place because of an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, is effective retroactively to April 22, 2016.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service plans to loosen restrictions on importation of live bovines and bovine products from several countries, it said (here). The agency said it preliminarily concurs with the Organization for Animal Health’s decision to classify Costa Rica, Germany, Lithuania, Mexico, Namibia, Romania and Spain as having negligible risk for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Under a 2013 final rule, bovines and bovine products may be imported from Mexico, Canada, or regions of negligible or controlled risk for BSE, subject to certain conditions (see 13110403). Romania and Namibia are currently not listed as either negligible or controlled risk countries, according to a list on the APHIS website (here). Comments are due March 24.

The Agricultural Marketing Service will not move forward with plans for U.S. grade standards for catfish and catfish products, it said (here). After consulting with industry, the agency decided there is no need for a voluntary AMS grading program because a similar program already exists under the National Marine Fisheries Service, AMS said.

On Jan. 18 the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports:

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes Jan. 17-18 to Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables and flowers.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (here) and the Centers for Disease Control (here) issued concurrent final rules amending their regulations related to the Select Agents and Toxins List. Though they made no changes to the actual list in their update, which is required every two years, they added regulatory provisions to address the inactivation of select agents, address biocontainment and biosafety, and clarify regulatory language concerning security, training, incident response and records, APHIS said. “These changes will increase the usability of the select agent regulations as well as providing for enhanced program oversight,” APHIS said.

The Agricultural Marketing Service is amending its organic livestock and poultry production requirements to add new provisions on livestock handling and transport for slaughter and avian living conditions, it said (here). The agency’s final rule also expands and clarifies “existing requirements covering livestock care and production practices and mammalian living conditions," AMS said. The changes take effect March 20.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service is proposing changes to nutrition labeling requirements for meat (including fish of the order Siluriformes, i.e., catfish) and poultry products (here). The proposed rule would align FSIS nutrition labels with the new labeling scheme adopted by the Food and Drug Administration in May (see 1605200021). FSIS would revise the information required on nutrition facts labels, adopt FDA's new format with larger type for calorie and serving information, and adopt new reference values for pregnant and lactating women and children under age 4. Single serving size and dual column labeling would be required for certain containers, and recordkeeping required for some nutrients. Comments are due March 20.

On Jan. 17 the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports:

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is adding Moldova to its list of regions subject to import restrictions on pork and pork products because they are affected by African swine fever, it said (here). Restrictions take effect retroactively to Oct. 4, 2016.