Request By:
Mr. Steve Colthurst, President
Kentucky Feed & Grain Association
Post Office Box 215
Midway, Kentucky 40347
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Joseph R. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to the Attorney General, you asked for an interpretation of 601 KAR 1:090 § 1(3). Specifically, this regulation exempts "feed, both in bulk and in bags" from the irregular route common carrier certificate requirement. Your question is whether all feed ingredients are all really feed and therefore fall into the exempted commodity category. The answer is a qualified yes.
It has been held that antibodies and harmones which are given to poultry, function not as feed but as catalysts to assist in the assimilation of feed.
Lupman Poultry Company v. Johnson, Me., 138 A.2d 631 (1958). The term "feed" is generally used to designate a mixture or preparation used for feeding livestock or a processed food.
Diemar v. Putnam County Farmers Mutual Insurance Company, Ohio, 79 N.E.2d 370 (1947).
The Kentucky Department of Transportation has interpreted the term "feed" not to include a feed ingredient which is not in itself suitable for consumption. Inferentially, we can conclude that a feed ingredient which is in itself suitable for consumption by the animal would fall into the exempt category. We are unable to find a conflict between the Kentucky Department of Transportation interpretation and that of the Interstate Commerce Commission which would exempt "any substance which can be fed to the animal and whose purpose is the nutrition or other welfare of the beast."
In conclusion, this office is of the opinion that any processed feed or feed ingredient which in and of itself is suitable for consumption by the animal and is conducive to the nutrition of the animal is exempt pursuant to the above regulation.