Meat meal back in feed is better for environment
Because global meat consumption puts a heavy burden on the environment, this could be lowered by reintroducing meat meal from slaughter houses in animal feeds.
Emiel Elferink concludes this from his promotional research at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
In Europe meat and bone meal was prohibited from animal feeds after BSE or mad cow disease hit the cattle sector and a few people died from the human variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob.
MBM is held responsible for the BSE outbreaks as cattle received feed containing remains of ruminants.
After the ban on the use of MBM in feeds the protein source has been replaced by vegetable proteins, such as soybeans.
This has lead to an enormous increase in soybean production. “About 16 million tonnes of meat meal has been replaced by 23 million tonnes of soybeans. If you make some calculations than it becomes clear that only for the replacement of slaughter offals you would need to cultivate ten percent of EU agricultural land,” Elferink said.
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