By Bruce Cochrane.
The proposed elimination of Table-4 from Canada's Feeds Act is being viewed as good news within Canada's livestock industry.
Table-4 of Canada's Feeds Act outlines minimum and maximum inclusions for a variety of compounds contained in livestock feed formulations.
As part of its modernization of Canada's livestock feed regulatory framework, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is proposing eliminating Table-4 and replacing it with maximum limits for certain compounds.
Carole Furedi, the Technical Services Manager with EMF Nutrition, says Table-4 has restricted the ability of nutritionists to tailor diets to the needs of animals so the proposed elimination of Table-4 is seen as good news.
Carole Furedi-EMF Nutrition:
I think the biggest challenge is that there is minimum requirements on a lot of the nutrients that we can now tailor a lot better than we could have in the early 1980s so, if we get rid of table 4, then we're actually going to be able to give them what they need rather than what they say they needed back in 1983.
We can now provide a lot of the animals with an enzyme that will loosen up some of the nutrients that were bound before and they actually have access to those and therefore we don't have to provide as much extra phosphorus, let's say, as what we would have needed to do before because the enzymes liberate some of that phosphorus from the grains that we're feeding them so now they're actually able to access those and we don't have to put in as much extra phosphorus.
It adds cost.
They don't need it.
We can give it to them with the enzymes that we're feeding so they get it from the grains and then, by adding the extra phosphorus, they don't actually need all of that so it does end up going out the back end.
Furedi notes the last time Canada's feed regulatory framework was revised was in the early 1980s and it's time we catch up to the technology that's been available in the feed industry for a number of years.