QS-System: quality assurance testing for farmers and local /regional cooperatives

When farmers feed their animals with anything other than compound feed drawn solely and directly from QS, they are considered to be producing their own feed from the perspective of QS-System. We help these farmers to maintain the correct analysis plan.

QS-System requires regular analyses for harmful substances in traded feedstuffs and also obligates QS-System participants to partake in analysis procedures. If several farmers are organise their feedstuffs through a cooperative, responsibility for feed quality does not lie with individual farmers, but rather with the supplying cooperative. Farmers participate in QS-System through the cooperative.

When farmers draw their feedstuffs solely and directly from QS sources, their feedstuffs require no further testing. The other participants, who have other sources, must partake in regular sampling of own-production feedstuffs (e.g. grain or maize silage) for the following:

• deoxynivalenol (DON)
• zearalenon
• dioxins
• polychlorinated biphenyls
• salmonella
• heavy metals (lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury)
• antibiotic growth promoters (4-plate inhibitor test)
• animal components

The number of samples required is set according to the amounts of own-production feedstuff handled by the cooperative. The QS guidelines and applicable documents contain the required details for this. Generally, most cooperatives are required to provide one sample a year from each own-producer and we are well practised in working together with cooperatives and we offer the special service of compiling and monitoring sample planning to ensure that their own-production is correctly analysed.