Center for a Livable Future Publishes Resource on Animal Feed

What is fed to animals produced for human consumption can have important implications for the health of the public. A just-released resource document, produced by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), offers a compendium of information for locating resources and detailed data regarding animal feed practices in the U.S. 

It can be very difficult to find information about what is in animal feed.  “This data is often unavailable for public scrutiny because the information is considered proprietary property of the $25 billion U.S. feed industry,” said Shawn McKenzie, co-author of Feed for Food-Producing Animals--A Resource on Ingredients, the Industry, and Regulations.

“Many of the current headline food safety issues—Salmonella, E. coli, antimicrobial resistance, dioxins and arsenic, to name just a few—are related to changes in animal feeding practices that have accompanied the industrialization of food-animal production," noted lead author, Lisa Lefferts. “Animal feeding practices and the feed industry as a whole have evolved in tandem with the industrialization of animal agriculture and cannot be understood in isolation,” added McKenzie.

The publication was developed in conjunction with the article published in Environmental Health Perspectives in May, 2007. The article, “What Do We Feed to Food-Production Animals? A Review of Animal Feed Ingredients and Their Potential Impacts on Human Health,” calls for increased funding for integrated veterinary and human heath surveillance systems and increased collaboration among feed professionals, animal producers, and veterinary and public health officials.