NMPF Statement on Introduction of House Bill Blocking Changes in FDA Regulation of Brewers’ Grains for Use as Animal Feed
April 9, 2014
From Jim Mulhern, President and Chief Executive Officer, NMPF: “The National Milk Producers Federation supports the legislation introduced this week by four House members to stop the Food and Drug Administration from making it harder to use beer by-products in animal feed. We need to keep the brew in the moo on our farms, and this legislation is a signal that the FDA needs to rethink the regulation that it is pursuing.
As our comments to the FDA last month pointed out, there is no public health risk associated with the long-standing practice of using brewers’ grains as animal feed. The proposed FDA regulations would unnecessarily increase costs to dairy farmers. Farmers have been using high-protein brewers’ grains in livestock feed for hundreds of years.
Last fall, the FDA suggested imposing stricter requirements for handling spent grains sold or donated to farmers as part of new feed regulations proposed under the 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act. The changes would require spent grains to be dried and packaged, before being passed on to farmers. Typically, farmers now receive wet grains, which help hydrate livestock.
Both the beer industry and agricultural groups, including NMPF, object to the planned changes, and we are encouraged that the FDA has said recently it will review its draft language. In the meantime, we support the legislative approach offered by Reps. Steve Womack (R-AR), Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT), Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Cory Gardner (R-CO) to highlight the importance of this issue.”
The National Milk Producers Federation, based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance the well-being of dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF’s cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of more than 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies.
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