Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the proposed policy requirement for anaerobic digestion sites to sterilize the muck before releasing it from site on those sites converting to the use of maize feedstock.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

The Animal by-products regulation classifies manure as a category 2 Animal by-product. However, there is no requirement to use an approved anaerobic digestion site for the disposal of manure (unlike other materials such as food waste). If the Animal and Plant Health Agency (which enforces the ABP regulations in question) does not consider there to be a risk of spreading any serious, transmissible disease, manure can be applied to land without processing (Authorisation B1). Nonetheless, the stacking and storage of manure, composting of manure and/or anaerobic digestion are recommended as best practice and should be adopted wherever possible to reduce the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria.