Industry News Update - February 4, 2008
Current Association News – February 4, 2008
Animal Ag Groups Join NRA in Opposition to FDA Feed Rule Change
The FDA Proposed Feed Rule (21 C.F.R. § 589.2000) was sent from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the White House Office of Management (OMB) in November. The OMB is the Executive Branch agency which applies benefit/cost evaluation to regulation. In December and January, NRA organized renderers visits to OMB, the US Trade representative (USTR), and USDA. OMB has now extended its review of the final rule by 30 days at the request of the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS)—FDA’s parent department. In late January, NRA organized a meeting of 12 animal agriculture organizations and the group sent a letter to HHS, FDA and USDA urging the federal government not to finalize this rule. The proposed amendments to the 1997 feed rule are not needed since the BSE risk is miniscule, the changes would be unnecessarily expensive, enforcement strategies are not developed, it would ruin the dead stock pick up system, and it would create an animal health and environmental crisis. OMB usually has 90 days to review a rule. That 90 days expired January 30, 2008 but with the HHS request the review will expire on March 1, 2008. After that time, FDA could publish the rule. NRA will continue to fight its publication by repeating the facts. The proposed rule would require the removal of brains and spinal cords from all cattle or the animals could not be fed to any other animals as rendered product. The final rule is expected to be similar but only limit use of such cattle products if the cattle is 30 months of age or older.
Report from AAFCO Midyear Meeting
The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) held its Midyear Meeting in San Antonio, TX, January 28-31. Among the many topics and committees, three items are of interest to NRA: AAFCO’s HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) Standards Task Force, the Model Bill Committee, and the Ingredient Definitions Committee.
AAFCO’s HACCP Standards Task Force
While NRA agrees with other industry interests that AAFCO is not the appropriate body to oversee industry programs, we support the voluntary adoption of HACCP-like programs such as the Rendering Code of Practice (COP).
AAFCO Model Bill Committee
The Model Bill Committee is working on draft Model Feed and Feed Ingredient Good Manufacturing Practices Regulations that was forwarded by the Feed Manufacturing Committee last August, but did not finish the work. The Committee is also considering a draft Model Non-commercial Feed Bill, which would regulate on-farm feed manufacture.
AAFCO Ingredient Definitions Committee
This committee considered a long list (16) of new or revised definitions for feed ingredients but only one had any thing to do with animal proteins—Air Dried Animal Blood Cells (Air Swept Tubular Drying). With little discussion and no debate, the following was adopted for that:
“Air Dried Animal Blood Cells (Air Swept Tubular Drying)—is the product obtained by drying red and white blood cells which have been separated from the plasma of clean, fresh, whole animal blood with only such amounts of plasma as might occur unavoidably in good processing methods. The blood cells are dried by exposing the cells to a heated air stream and retaining them in the maximum moisture of 11%; and a minimum protein of 90%. If the product bears a name descriptive of its kind, origin, or composition it must correspond thereto.”
This revised definition for Animal By-Product Meal is being considered:
“Animal By-Product Meal” is the rendered product from animal tissues from single or multiple families and does not contain any non-animal materials except as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. Minimum crude protein, minimum crude fat, maximum crude fiber, minimum and maximum calcium, minimum phosphorus must be guaranteed. The product must not contain more than 12% pepsin indigestible residue and not more than 9% if the crude protein in the product may be pepsin indigestible.(Determined by AOAC method listed in the Check Sample Reference for Analytical Variations.) This ingredient definition is intended to cover situations where rendering raw materials available results in the production of a product that cannot meet one of the other rendered product definitions. This ingredient definition is not intended to be used to label a product composed of rendered products that were mixed post rendering.”
Other January Trips—BIFSCO
In addition to AAFCO last month, I also attended the Beef Industry Food Safety Council (BIFSCO) executive committee meeting in Denver. As has been the case the past couple of meetings, the main emphasis was sanitation programs and testing regimes to prevent e-coli contamination of ground beef.
Other January Trips—International Poultry Expo
The IPE in Atlanta was also in January and included for the first time a conference on Pet Food Ingredient Quality. The IPE is attended by every segment of the poultry and egg industry: feed milling, live production, hatchery, processing, further processing, packaging, commercial egg, marketing, and all support activities.
Rendering Code of Practice—Momentum Continues
Check out the list maintained on the APPI website: http://www.animalprotein.org/, we are very proud of these leading companies—make sure you get listed. We have 71 plants certified to date!
Remember – Certifications are good for 2 years – some of the first plants to be audited should begin to schedule their renewal audit.
Regulation
FDA, AAFCO Sign Feed Ingredient Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) and AAFCO recently signed a MOU concerning the process by which AAFCO Feed Ingredient Definitions, including those intended for use in animal feed and pet foods, are established, modified or removed. This document is a first step toward CVM’s formal recognition of AAFCO’s list of defined ingredients. CVM has long played an integral role in the AAFCO Feed Ingredient Definition process. While considered by CVM to be an informal procedure, an FDA Compliance Policy Guide (CPG) first written in 1980 regarded the AAFCO definitions as constituting the “common or usual” names for feed ingredients contemplated by the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
A copy of the MOU is available at:
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/98fr/fda225-07-7001-mou0001.pdf
A magazine article describing the process in detail can be found here:
http://www.petfoodindustry.com/ViewArticle.aspx?id=20328
Reminder on BSE Testing of Dead Cattle
Since USDA/APHIS scaled back the enhanced BSE testing about a year and a half ago, little has been discussed about testing procedure. However, they will continue to sample approximately 40,000 animals each year. The targeted population for ongoing surveillance focuses on cattle exhibiting signs of central nervous disorders or any other signs that may be associated with BSE, including emaciation or injury, and dead cattle, as well as nonambulatory animals. The targeted populations include animals suspected of rabies, and if they test negative for rabies they will then be tested for BSE.
Coalition to Oppose Ozone Regulation Still Active
EPA is proposing to strengthen the nation’s air quality standards for ground-level ozone, revising the standards for the first time since 1997. Agriculture production and processing produces VOCs (including methane and ethanol) and NOx that would be regulated through monitoring and possibly via controls. Stringent control measures would be implemented that could curtail production activities, restrict pesticide applications, designate/limit pesticide application times, eliminate pesticide availability, restrict animal agricultural feeding operations (emissions from animal waste handling and storage), prescribe costly control measures for animal agriculture, and prescribe costly control measures for certain food and agricultural processing industries (including scaling factors for VOC measurements).
There have been economic analyses done on the effects of a tighter ozone standard. Here are some newspaper stories regarding the economic impacts as a result of a tighter ozone standard:
http://www.macon.com/198/story/253478.html
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/01/30/waterbill_0131.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/01/28/daily35.html
http://www.btobmagazine.com/
Future Regulation Pushed by Codex
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome has released a new report of a joint feed expert consultation that occurred in October 2007. The report can be found here: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/home/documents/Animal-feeding_report.pdf The importance of this report is due to the relationship of FAO to the Codex Alimentarius (Food Code) Commission (CAC) which the FAO administers. In 2004, the CAC accepted a report that created a “Code of Good Animal Feeding Practice.” As Codex is a WTO-recognized scientific body, the adoption of a code can have considerable trade implications, in that countries may legally bar animal feed for food animals if it does not meet the code’s requirements. Because the Code makes several recommendations and includes HACCP (hazard analysis critical control points) adoption, where appropriate, to reduce hazards in feed for food animals, the EU adopted HACCP as a requirement of feed in Jan. 2006 and required it for imports in Jan. 2007 (although there is little enforcement at this point). This means any EU country can legally bar feed or ingredients from coming into the EU unless produced under the HACCP requirements. The EU also extended such requirements to pet food, although Codex’s mandate is only for human food. Codex has called for opinions on forming a new feed task force.
Meetings
APPI Seminar 2008—Dallas, TX, May 14-15, 2008
Don’t miss this meeting. It will be our best seminar to date, and will help position renderers to respond to the challenges of the day including traceability demands, compliance expectations, product safety and quality issues, recall responsibilities, HACCP, and plant security issues, among others. Please click on this link to register on-line for the APPI Seminar:
http://appi-seminar.nationalrenderers.org/
The seminar will be $300 for early registration, and room costs are a group rate of $219.00 per night (plus tax). You should only need one night because we’ll start at 12:30 pm May 14th and end at 12:30 pm May 15th, 2008.
2008 Beef Industry Safety Summit—Dallas, TX, March 5-7, 2008
The 2008 Beef Industry Safety Summit will bring together safety professionals who work in all sectors of the beef production, processing and marketing chain. It will be held at the Omni Dallas Hotel at Park West in Dallas, TX. Please contact bifsco@beef.org to request a registration form and agenda.
To view the 2007 Beef Industry Safety Summit Executive Summary please use the following link:
http://www.bifsco.org/beef2007BeefIndustrySafetySummit.aspx
Other Issues
GAO Releases Food Safety Oversight Report
The Government Accountability Office has released a report reviewing federal oversight for food safety. It found that the Food & Drug Administration needs to utilize its resources more efficiently because while the workload regarding food safety in the past 10 years has increased, staff and funding have not increased at the same pace. Overlapping inspections by FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were another finding of the GAO report. The agency recommended the FDA commission USDA inspectors at certain facilities to reduce overlap. FDA’s Food Protection Plan released in November 2007 makes some positive first steps toward enhancing food safety, according to the GAO. However, additional funding will be needed to carry them out. Without a clear description of resources and strategies, it will be difficult for Congress to assess the likelihood of the plan’s success in achieving its intended results.
The GAO report can be found here:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08435t.pdf
Rising Food Prices Intensify Food Insecurity in Developing Countries
This is a USDA/ERS article which finds that rising energy prices, use of feed crops for biofuel, greater world food demand, and stagnant food aid may undermine the food security of low-income countries.
The article can be found here:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/February08/Features/RisingFood.htm
Japanese Conclude BSE in Japan Not Linked to Dutch Animal Fat
Japanese research initially thought that animal fats (used in artificial milk powder) from the Netherlands have led to several BSE cases in Japan during the periods 1995-1996 and 1999-2001. The Central Veterinary Institute in the Netherlands also investigated the possible contamination link in Dutch BSE cows. The institute concluded that the milk powder was absolutely not the cause of infection. The Japanese Ministry also doubts a possible link as a result of the conclusion from the Dutch report and also from conclusions drawn from EFSA that also questions the whole issue.
A story on this can be found here:
http://www.allaboutfeed.net/home/id102-37409/no_link_bse_in_japan_and_dutch_animal_fat.html
Experts: New Illness from Inhaling Pig Brains
Scientists are currently studying the nature of a new illness being reported by workers at pork slaughterhouses in Minnesota and Indiana. The disease, named progressive inflammatory neuropathy (PIN) by the Centers for Disease Control, is believed to be obtained by a person upon inhaling microscopic fragments of pig brains. Symptoms of PIN included numbness, burning, fatigue, and a tingling feeling in the appendages. Several sick workers also reported of difficulty walking, and working. Although the symptoms were reported to eventually subside, they did not completely disappear. The slaughterhouses in the two states were known to remove the brains of the swine, pack them, and send them to Korea and China as food. So far, scientists say there is no reason to suspect contamination in the pig brains. Their theories were reported to currently center on the notion that once the pig brains were inhaled, the body produced antibodies that, while attacking the pig brains, also affected similar human nerve tissues. Officials in Minnesota said they want to investigate the plants’ workers going back a decade, to when an air-compression system was installed to remove brain tissue from pig heads. The question is whether the workers inhaled pig brain tissue after it was liquefied during removal by the air-compression system and sprayed into the air as droplets. Both plants have stopped using the process to remove pig brains.
A news story can be found here:
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009927010
No Changes for Ethanol Import Tax
The Bush Administration has sent its 2009 budget up to Congress, and it did not include changes to the U.S. ethanol import tariff. The budget year begins Oct. 1, and the tariff is set to expire at the end of December 2008. An Administration spokesperson said Bush would discuss what should be done with the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff with lawmakers later this year. A tariff extension through 2010 was included in the Senate version of the Farm Bill, which is now working its way through the House/Senate conference committee. Last week, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman hinted that the Administration might address cutting back the tariff in its 2009 budget.
FDA Gets 5.7% Increase in President’s Budget
President Bush proposed the Food and Drug Administration get $2.4 billion for the 2009 fiscal year starting Oct. 1. If approved it means that the FDA receives 5.7% more than the current budget. However, many experts say that more money is needed to safeguard the U.S. food supply.
German Pig Crisis Blamed on GM Opponents
The current difficulties in the German pig sector are attributed to government opposition to genetically modified (GM) feedstuffs, according to a representative of German opposition party, the Free Democratic Party (FDP). In a press statement FDP said the problems on the German pig market are partly “home-made” as the government’s “anti-innovation policy” is blocking biotechnology in Germany and Europe with inevitable consequences for feed prices. They said that for Germany’s main EU competitors, feed costs are lower due to the use of new GM varieties. In addition, he believes that German pig production laws are a hindrance and pig farmers should be allowed to feed their animals with animal fats and feeds made from animal protein.