Canada bans cattle brains, spines from feed

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N09174232.htm

 

Canada bans cattle brains, spines from feed

09 Jul 2004 19:57:56 GMT

(Adds details, background, quotes from CFIA, industry

officials, agriculture minister)

 

By Roberta Rampton

 

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, July 9 (Reuters) - Canada will

keep cattle brains, spines and other materials that

pose a risk of transmitting mad cow disease out of pig

and poultry feed, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

said on Friday.

 

The strict new feed rules come more than a year after

an expert panel recommended changes in the wake of the

country's first home-grown case of mad cow disease,

discovered last May.

 

" We felt it was time to signal the direction we plan

to go in order to allow us to move to a different

stage of consultation and begin to really bear down on

the details, " said Billy Hewett, director of policy

for the international affairs section of the CFIA, the

federal food safety agency.

 

Canada banned the practice of adding protein made from

rendered cattle and other ruminants to cattle feed in

1997 -- a practice that scientists believe can spread

the brain-wasting disease.

 

Poultry and pigs had been allowed to eat rendered

cattle material because they are not susceptible to

the disease.

 

The new rule, which will be refined over coming

months, is designed to ensure cattle are not

accidentally fed the wrong kind of feed on farms with

more than one type of livestock, or from mills that

make both kinds of feed.

 

Canada will also ban dead and sick cattle from being

rendered into feed ingredients, the CFIA said.

 

Canada's beef and feed industries had lobbied Ottawa

to work in step with U.S. regulators so that feed

rules did not become a trade irritant.

 

But U.S. officials on Friday asked for comments on

ideas for stricter feed rules, and said they may not

have final regulations in place until 2005 or 2006.

 

The feed rules will help Canada's efforts to overturn

13-month-long trade bans on cattle and beef, which

have devastated its export-dependent industry,

Agriculture Minister Bob Speller said.

 

" I think that other countries around the world will

see that Canada has in fact taken more action than any

country in terms of dealing with this issue, " Speller

said.

 

Hewett said Canada will continue to work to harmonize

its feed rules with the United States, but it needed

to respond to concerns from other trade partners who

wondered how Canada had dealt with its mad cow risks.

 

" Our sense, on the basis of discussions that we've

been having with (the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration), is that their thinking is along a

similar line, " Hewett told Reuters in an interview.

 

Meat and beef industry officials agreed.

 

" I'm comfortable that (the feed rules) will be

harmonized in an effective way so as to not put either

country at a competitive disadvantage, " said Stan Eby,

president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association.

 

But the new measures were expected to increase costs

for Canadian slaughter plants and renderers, and

decrease returns for ranchers.

 

Memphis-based consultants Sparks Co. is analyzing how

much material Canada will need to dispose of and how

much that will cost.

 

" I think the costs associated with it are going to be

quite, quite high, " said Humphry Koch, executive

vice-president of West Coast Reduction Ltd., a

rendering company.

 

Koch said he was relieved U.S. officials appeared to

be leaning toward similar measures, but said there is

no scientific reason the material should be kept out

of pig and poultry feed.

 

" I'm not sure it's going to open up any markets for us

that aren't already opened, " Koch said. (Additional

reporting by Jeffrey Jones in Calgary)