In the TiHo, scientists are discussing a ban on the feeding of slaughter by-products

"Some measures should be reconsidered"

When animals are slaughtered, many by-products are produced that are no longer used as food by humans or are not suitable for consumption. Up to 50 percent of the animal is not used as food, and the trend is rising. In the case of sheep, for example, 52 percent of the slaughtered animal goes into the food chain and 48 percent into the disposal. The Veterinary Public Health seminar on "The (re) use of slaughter by-products" took place at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover. Representatives from science, politics and industry discussed the opportunities that a lifting of the total feed ban would offer. 260 participants took part in the event, so it was fully booked.

Until the BSE crisis in 2000, slaughtering by-products over decades was a positive example of meaningful downstream processing. The absolute feed ban was part of the BSE control strategy. "The parts of a slaughter animal that are not used as food also contain energy and valuable nutrients," said Professor Dr. med. Josef Kamphues, Head of the Institute for Animal Nutrition of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover and one of the organizers of the conference. "For the year 2050 a world population of about nine billion people is forecasted. Can we do without slaughter by-products as a source of protein in this context? "He asked at the conference. A large part of the protein that is fed in Germany today comes from imported soy. Is not it more sensible to use sources of white matter that are available on site? In addition, animal proteins are higher quality. Around 150.000 tonnes of animal protein would be available in slaughterhouse by-products from pigs and chickens in Germany. That's equivalent to 300.000 to 350.000 tons of soy. Another limited global resource is phosphorus. In agriculture, it is used in fertilizer and animal feed production, but also outside of agriculture, the demand for phosphorus is increasing. Nevertheless, vast amounts of phosphorus are lost unused, which in earlier times, for example, about bone meal were returned to the feeding. Even though slaughter by-products are still used as fertilizer today, the phosphorus contained in them can not be used by the plants and is thus wasted. Ewald Schnug from the Julius Kühn Institute in his lecture.

Dr. Looking back, Anne Balkeme-Buschmann from the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut in Greifswald showed that the measures taken to combat the animal disease BSE were very successful: “The BSE cases have decreased significantly across the European Union. After two cases were diagnosed in Germany in 2008 and 2009, no case was found in 2010 for the first time since active BSE monitoring began. ”Dr. Matthias Greiner from the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment emphasized that, despite the good development, there is no all-clear for BSE.

Animal by-products are divided into three categories according to their risk potential. Category III products have the lowest risk potential. These include parts of food-grade animals that are not suitable for human consumption, such as bristles or hooves, and parts that are no longer or rarely consumed today, such as offal. The products in this category come from carcasses that have been approved for foodstuffs, but are not intended for human consumption and are subject to the feeding ban. Various speakers at the conference called for category III pork and poultry products in the form of animal fats and proteins to be re-approved for feeding to non-ruminants. This form of recycling is excluded for parts of cattle.

By-products from pig and poultry slaughter were not and are not affected by the high BSE risk, so that other standards could also apply here. "Many of the measures taken in response to the BSE crisis have proven to be most effective, as success shows, but some should be reconsidered as to the need to use them in the pig and poultry feeding sector to reuse valuable raw materials," said Professor Kamphues.

Source: Hanover [TiHo]