Lexington, KY - An FDA regulation designed to prevent the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, has agriculture leaders concerned about its unintended consequences as farmers, businesses, and county government deal with the disposal of cattle carcasses no longer able to enter the rendering system.
The regulation, scheduled to go into effect on April 27, 2009, prohibits the use of the brains and spinal cords in cattle over 30 months of age as ingredients in rendered products. Removing the items from a carcass is not cost effective for most rendering operations, thus turning what was once a commodity into a waste product. Today, all ruminant-derived byproducts, such as meat and bone meal, are prohibited from use in cattle feed by the 1997 feed ban put in place by the FDA.
"The 1997 feed ban has worked and continues to work today," explained Robert Griffin of Griffin Industries, a rendering and waste recycling company based in Cold Spring, Ky. "There was no necessity of expanding the feed rule other than to satisfy the political arena we live in today."
Griffin Industries recently informed clients like Gabe Nation of Nation Brothers, Inc. in Shelbyville, which offers dead animal removal services, that it would continue to take their carcasses for disposal rendering only.
"The liability involved with this regulation is more than they want to deal with and I can understand why," Nation said, "but with the value gone, we can't afford to continue to provide our services to our clients."
Nation explained that the price of Nation Brothers' service would have to more than double because of the new regulations.
"If I do not choose to take on the extra burden, cost, or responsibility of this ban, there will be 9 million-plus pounds of dead carcasses laying on the ground in the 22 counties I service in Kentucky," explained Nation.
On top of everything else, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture recently ended a county grant program for dead animal removal, due to the fact that the funds were no longer available to their department to distribute to the counties.
"The reality of the situation is that if the service is available once the regulation goes into effect, it is bound to be incredibly more expensive than it is today," said Jim Akers, COO of Bluegrass Livestock Marketing in Lexington. "With the economic challenges producers are already facing, the unintended consequences of a regulation that increases the cost of removing dead animals could create a horrible situation on our farms, if farmers can't afford to properly dispose of the animals. The safeguards that we have in place have worked and we do not have a BSE problem in the U.S.; this rule is a gross overreaction."
As a family company whose foundation was established with the animal rendering business, Griffin Industries has been trying since the regulation was introduced to find a market that would allow them to continue to provide a service to the community.
"In my heart, I know that somewhere down the road there is just going to be no value, and eventually most of this material will end up in the landfills or in environmentally sensitive areas such as sinkholes on farms," Griffin said.
According to the FDA's own environmental assessment of the new rule, abandoning dead cattle or improperly burying or composting them can cause foul odors; pollute soil, groundwater and streams; and attract insects and scavengers. Moreover, the infectious agent that carries mad cow disease may survive burial or composting, the agency said.
Many in the industry are questioning the logic of passing a regulation that could lead to environmental issues that reach beyond the livestock industry. Some industry leaders that spoke out against the regulation feel that the only reason the regulation was approved was to broker a trade deal with Korea.
"This regulation was born out of the negotiation for the Korean trade deal," said Jim Akers, CEO of the Bluegrass Marketing. "In an effort to get the trade package put together, people agreed to this and it ended up in the FDA arena instead of APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services). Our industry has very little input in that arena, and so here we are today trying to figure out how our industry is going to handle the problems that will come when the regulation goes into effect."
As for Nation, unless the regulation is changed, there doesn't appear to be a solution other than to close the doors.
"It upsets me to think of losing my family business we have worked so hard to build, through no fault of my own," said Nation. "Please do not make the mistake of thinking that I am only concerned about my business. I am worried about Kentucky and the impending environmental issues facing our state. If a government creates an environmental hazard, is it not up to that government to help dispose of it?"
That is a question many of Kentucky's livestock producers are asking themselves as the April 27 ban draws near.