April 18, 2006

US university to research on uses of animal co-products

What do you do with 54 billion pounds of inedible tissues produced by the US animal production industry each year?

That is the multi-million dollar question the newly inaugurated Animal Co-Products Research & Education Centre (ACREC) would attempt to answer.

Traditionally, co-products such as bones are mixed into feed to cattle to form bone meal. However that practice was stopped after such feed was suspected of causing mad cow disease.

The centre, at Clemson University, South Carolina, would be focusing on research into uses for animal co-products, the first of its kind in the world.

While generating new research opportunities for students, it would also be bringing about a network of agricultural scientists.

Besides researching new uses for meat and bone meal and other animal co-products, ACREC would also address biosecurity-related, biodiesel and environmental issues.

Calvin Schoulties, dean of Clemson's College of Agriculture, Forestry & Life Sciences, said research done at Clemson would also improve processing methods and find new uses for co-products.

For example, current high-energy costs provide opportunities to make cost-competitive alternative fuels from co-products such as animal oils, he said.