Associate Farm Editor, Reagan Calk, is talking with the President and CEO of the American Feed Industry Association, Constance Cullman, about biosecurity in feed facilities, the FDA Feed Ingredient Program and more.
Although Covid was the root of many challenges, Constance said it was a learning opportunity for the food and ag industry.
“We actually learned additional biosecurity protocols through the Covid pandemic in addition to ones we already had in place for all kinds of animal diseases,” Cullman said. “We have taken some of those learnings, applied that to our biosecurity protocols, and really enhanced them, and are working to find out if there are any other things that we are missing when it comes to very virulent diseases like African swine fever.”
Cullman also talked about a study AFIA is partnering on with Kansas State University involving decontaminating a feed mill of African swine fever. The study uses proxy viruses to decontaminate feed mills, as it can be difficult to wash all the different parts of equipment inside.
“We do have tools right now in hand to be able to do that,” Cullman said. “We just have to keep EPA from getting rid of important tools like formaldehyde, which is one of the key tools we would have to use to decontaminate a feed mill.”
Foot traffic and tire traffic are the most common ways an animal disease would be transmitted, Cullman said, so a big part of the study is working on protocols in those areas.
Cullman also talked about the FDA Feed Ingredient Program.
“It is a hot topic because it has been so cold for 25 years,” Cullman said. “Twenty-five years ago, is the last time they actually modernized the regulatory approval process for feed ingredients in animal drugs.”
Under the current regulatory program, Cullman said feeding ingredients that help with an animal’s gut health, for example, cannot have claims associated with it unless it is labeled as a drug.
Many countries have the ability to label products with those health benefits associated without the product going through a long approval process.
“We have been working with the FDA Center for Vet Med to modernize that system and allow the feed ingredients to have some of those claims associated with it so companies can actually communicate to farmers and ranchers what that product does,” Cullman said.
Looking forward, Cullman said she is cautiously optimistic as the FDA Center for Vet Med will need to receive plenty of congressional support to make those changes and get adequate resources to implement the program.
“We need about ten million dollars more a year going to FDA’s Center for Vet Med for them to actually review these products and get them out to the public and into farmers’ and ranchers’ hands,” Cullman said.
