June 29, 2006

Canada mulls ways of getting rid of waste animal parts

Canada's announcement of a ban on cattle parts in all animal feed, pet food and fertilizers on Monday (Jun 26) has presented a predicament to the nation's beef producers.

Cattle farmers now have to think of another avenue of disposing 264,000 tonnes of cow guts produced each year, according to a federal impact analysis published by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Currently there are no widely applicable non-feed uses for the material, meaning that the animal parts would likely be rendered down and either incinerated, dumped in a landfill or buried.

In Europe, much of the banned material is incinerated. However, in Canada, there are as yet no proscribed method for disposing of the waste. CIFA would judge the proposals on a case-by-case basis.

The new regulations are an update of the 1997 policy that banned specified risk materials (srm) from feed meant for cattle. Feed containing cattle parts is believed to be the chief cause of mad cow disease.

It takes as little as one mg of infected material to spread mad cow disease. Canada's recent cases of mad cow disease was believed to have arisen from cross contamination whereby feed equipment used for meat-based feed for other animals is also used for cattle feed.

Under the regulations that come into force in July 2007, all feed, as well as pet food and fertiliser, would have to be free from cattle parts.

For the rendering industry, the new rules would mean big adjustments, according to Humphrey Koch, the executive vice-president of West Coast Reduction, a rendering company with plants in Western Canada.

Under the old rules, renderers could make US$100-150 a cow selling the parts as feed. Now, Koch estimates losing at least US$100 a cow.