The high quality fats and proteins produced by renderers improve the nutrition of farm animals, poultry, fish, and companion animals. Renderers also contribute essential ingredients for industrial products like lubricants and plastics as well as consumer products such as soaps and cosmetics. Renderers add value to the U.S. livestock and poultry marketing chains and have a long history of exporting – roughly 20 percent of U.S. production is exported. The National Renderers Association (NRA) has been a cooperator with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) in foreign market development since 1956.
As recently as 1995, U.S. exports, mainly fats, to the European Union (EU) topped $145 million; last year they were less than $30 million. Worse though, today U.S. exports around the globe are being threatened and world animal agriculture, as we know it today, is in jeopardy. With roughly 15 percent of the world’s livestock, the EU is dictating the terms of trade for the rest of the world.
Granted, the EU has a challenge in controlling bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). This dreaded disease has now been confirmed in 14 of the EU’s 15 member countries and in six neighboring countries, although over 98 percent of all cases are reported in just one country – the United Kingdom. But in attacking this disease, the EU has followed the “precautionary principle,” not the proven methods of sound science, and failed to recognize trade and the impact its actions have on third countries. Some might conclude that the EU might just be using sanitary measures to restrain trade.
And it’s not over. Currently, the EU has several additional measures under consideration that will reduce U.S. trade still further and also impact imports of products such as companion animal feeds and soaps, which include rendered products.
One proposal will ban species-to-species feeding of animal by-products. First, let’s get one point very clear. We are not talking about buckets of blood and guts, but rather highly processed products. Renderers process raw materials at very high temperatures (250-285 degrees Fahrenheit) for extended periods of time (45-90 minutes). The meat and bone meal produced is a dense powder that is transported in sterile containers while the fats are heavy liquids that move in sealed tanks or drums.
Yes, it has been recognized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and Office International des Epizooties that ruminant meat and bone meal might be a vehicle for the transmission of BSE. Consequently, the United States and other countries have instituted BSE safeguard ruminant-to-ruminant feed bans. But there is no science to support that either porcine or poultry tissues can transmit BSE. The EU is overdoing it, reacting to perceptions, not the facts. Or rather, maybe the EU is reacting to a lack of trust in its own regulatory systems without regard to its roll in an intertwined global trading system?
A second EU proposal would exclude recovered frying fats from animal feeds. Renderers provide a service to society by collecting recovered frying fats from food preparation establishments. They heat it to destroy potential pathogens, filter it, and test it for possible toxins. Then, and only then, is it a possible feed ingredient, an ingredient high in energy and used in the United States for over 40 years without any incidents. But, the EU had what amounted to a single criminal mishap several years ago so they now want to ban a valuable product from the feed chain, creating an environmental problem. Without a viable economic outlet, these materials will be dumped into the public sewer systems. Of course, U.S. trade will get still further reduced.
However, we are not here to talk about lost opportunities in the EU that today is mainly a symbolic market for much of American agriculture, but rather the international ripple effect that EU regulations are having on the rest of the world. The examples are many.
EU Influence
In late 2000, Poland and several countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East banned imports of meat and bone meal from all countries, not just from those that had confirmed cases of BSE. This obviously was unjust to countries like the United States that have not had one single case of BSE, and represented a ripple of the “precautionary principle” beyond the borders of the EU.
This ripple has spread to Asia – first to the Philippines, then to Malaysia and Japan. Japan, when it reported the first case of BSE outside of Europe, not only shut the door to meat and bone meal from all sources, but also challenged whether tallow might be a vehicle for the transmission of BSE. Even the EU recognizes that tallow is not a possible BSE vehicle. But again, we see the “precautionary principle” at work, not sound science.
Australia, too, has used the “precautionary principle” to attempt to gain a market advantage over U.S. beef in world markets. About a year ago, Australia banned the inclusion of any animal by-product meals, including fish meal, in animal feed rations in that country. By inference, they are now saying that their beef is safer than U.S. beef. However, they still export meat and bone meal, now in increased quantities.
I might add here that the USDA, through FAS and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS), has been quite helpful in keeping the market for meat and bone meal open in Korea and Thailand and working to enlighten the Philippine government. FAS and APHIS have also been quite helpful in China, a huge market for the U.S. rendering industry.
But, nonetheless, as we see it, the EU’s “precautionary principle” is rippling around the globe with only minor challenges. Let’s not kid ourselves, though, the EU has considerable leverage. It has the power to dictate terms to EU applicant countries such as Poland. It also has considerable economic power over countries like China, Thailand, and Indonesia who want to ship poultry and shrimp to the EU, commodities that could have rendered by-products in their feed formulations.
Therefore, as the EU adopts unscientifically supported measures, such as a species-to-species feed ban, with its immense leverage, it has the ability to change world animal agriculture as we know it today. And, as other countries see the “precautionary principle” going unchallenged, they too will be tempted to adopt it to their own ends, which for sure will include increased barriers to trade.
In closing, the rippling around the world of the “precautionary principle” will impact products well beyond our narrow grouping of animal by-products if not challenged by those forces who support the proven mentions of sound science.
International Report - October 2002 Render