feed ban violations?

[jensend]

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e8bb3e11-274e-4bdb-ad44-564eb7aa6323

suspected rumianant remains in some feed samples. about half the samples are from imported feeds.

[kato]

Wouldn't it be nice to know where those imported feeds came from?

[cakadu]

Cattle feed violates ban: federal tests: Animal remnants found in 4 brands
January 7, 2005
National Post
A1 / Front
April Lindgren, with files from Chad Skelton
Source: CanWest News Service
Federal tests have, according to this story, discovered that four brands of Canadian cattle feed likely included cattle or other ruminant parts in violation of a ban on animal remains designed to protect against mad cow disease.
Sergio Tolusso of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was cited as saying the feed and feed ingredients were sold as being free of animal matter, but microscopic examinations detected animal material in 66 of 110 samples tested between January and March, 2004.
Mr. Tolusso, the agency's feed program co-ordinator, was quoted as saying that
subsequent inspections of feed mills led officials to conclude "there were some cases where it was more likely than others that it could be ruminant protein. We are looking at four cases where we thought it [feed] could be material of ruminant origin."
Mr. Tolusso played down any risk the material could lead to the spread of mad-cow disease.
About half of the 110 samples were taken from imported feed products, while the balance came from Canadian mills. CFIA officials would not release the names or locations of the four plants.
Christine Aquino, spokeswoman for federal Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell, was quoted as saying regular inspections and audits of the country's 550 feed mills have shown "a very high compliance with the feed ban."

[farmers_son]

Maybe the contaminated feed came from the U.S. companies mentioned in this article....

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/8533101.htm?1c

According to this Associated Press story dated April 2004 almost 100 U.S. companies had violated U.S. regulations meant to prevent the spread of BSE.

North American Nutrition Companies in Lewisburg, Ohio manufacturers and distributes feed to the livestock industry throughout the United States and parts of Canada. Its president and chief executive, Dwight Armstrong, said his company found an improperly labeled ingredient that contained a restricted ruminant protein...

... of the dozen firms listed on April 23 as FDA's most serious cases had problems noted by inspectors during the past five months. Those had violations that have the potential for mixing prohibited material or had serious labeling or record-keeping problems, said Steve Solomon, deputy director of the FDA's office of regional operations in Washington.

[grassfarmer]

Another wild goose chase! IF BSE were possible to be spread by ingested feed there might be a microscopic risk - but only if it's in the calf milk replacer. We ran this story so many times in the UK - one pellet manufacturer lost huge volume sales because there was a rumour the contaminated pellets came from them - which was nonsense.
These are all irrelevant concerns anyway given the specified offal removal procedures on OTM cattle. Actually I'm surprised there haven't been more problems with that process. After all the UK OTMs were getting incinerated we started to import ever larger quantities of European cull cows in carcase form and several shipments turned up with a 4 inch length of spinal cord still attached. The Germans, Danes and French seemed particularily poor at getting it right.
I wonder how well it is being done in the big plants in N America given the line speeds they use?