Effect of New FDA BSE Provisions on Alabama Producers

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson has announced several new public health measures, to be implemented by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to strengthen existing firewalls that protect Americans from exposure to the agent thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as mad cow disease) and that help prevent the spread of BSE in U.S. cattle.

One change will be to FDA’s 1997 animal feed ban, which is the critical safeguard to help prevent the spread of BSE through cattle herds by prohibiting the feeding of most mammalian protein to ruminant animals, including cattle. One of the most significant changes to the rule will ban the feeding of poultry litter to cattle. FDA will publish two interim final rules that will take effect immediately upon publication, although there will be an opportunity for public comment after publication. Publication is expected in the immediate future.

Dr. Darrell Rankins, an animal scientist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System who specializes in cattle nutrition, says this ban will create challenges for Alabama cattle producers who currently use poultry litter as part of their winter feeding programs.

“Farmers will be faced with a feed supply that is no longer legal to use and will have to replace it immediately,” Rankins said. “That will create a challenge for producers to locate appropriate feeds and to get them onsite. Farmers face the very real chance of having their feed be legal one day and illegal the next.”
Rankins added that while not even a majority of cattle producers feed poultry litter to their herds, the ban will have a definite impact on a significant number of cattle operations.

Poultry litter consists of bedding, spilled feed, feathers, and fecal matter that are collected from living quarters where poultry is raised. This material is then used in cattle feed in some areas of the country where cattle and large poultry raising operations are located near each other.

Poultry feed may legally contain protein that is prohibited in ruminant feed, such as bovine meat and bone meal. The concern is that spillage of poultry feed in the chicken house occurs and that poultry feed (which may contain protein prohibited in ruminant feed) is then collected as part of the “poultry litter” and added to ruminant feed.

View the complete FDA press release dealing with the BSE safeguards.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at January 27, 2004 03:25 PM