Deadstock operators recoup costs with drastic measures

Saturday, March 14, 2009

© AgMedia Inc.

by GEOFF DALE

With government funding to Ontario deadstock collectors ending last month, costs are mounting for farmers needing to dispose animal carcasses and a former agriculture minister warns of environmental and health risks.

Ernie Hardeman, Oxford MPP and the Tory’s agriculture critic, says the lack of money has resulted in some companies dramatically increasing their collection rates, in one case up to 75 per cent. “The problem is particularly acute for farmers in eastern Ontario because of the longer distances involved in transport and the fact that operators there are generally smaller with smaller pickups means more costs,” he says.

This week, Hardeman told Leona Dombrowsky, the province’s agriculture minister, farmers were being left with decomposed carcasses on their properties because the government’s disposal regulations will not be in place until later this spring.

Describing the recently terminated funding as an “interim measure,” Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson Brent Ross says the $19.5-million allocated to deadstock operators over the past five years was intended as a bridge between SRM (specified risk material) rules and new government regulations to be unveiled in April. It was not a permanent solution, he says.

New federal rules about the disposal of SRMs, which are cattle tissues capable of transmitting BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), came into effect in 2007. The rules banned the materials from animal feeds, pet foods and fertilizers. Previous rules had banned the materials from entering the human food chain.

Now, with the end of transition funding, collectors like Don Montague, owner of Peconi and Sons Deadstock Collectors in Woodville, are taking drastic steps to cope. Montague introduced a new rendering fee of 12 cents a pound, then shut his operation recently for 10 days, including weekends.

“We never shut down on weekends but during that period we had 47 large animals to dispose and only six farmers could pay the new disposal fees,” he says. The burden of paying “has been placed squarely on the shoulders of producers.” The total amount, which includes other service charges, is now nearly $200 an animal.

Guy Machabee, owner of Machabee Animal Food Limited in St. Albert, says he’s increased his disposal fees to $125 from $65 for a large animal because of the funding cut. He says his business volume has decreased about 50 per cent.

Tom Smith, who manages the province’s largest deadstock operation, Atwood Pet Food Supplies Ltd. in Perth County, has introduced a gasification unit to destroy 100 tons of SRM meat and bone meal produced every week at a rate of about one ton per hour.

He says the company plans to launch the unit in three weeks. “I will be running a natural gas boiler that will supply my rendering and also supply heat needed to run the rendering process,” he says.

Smith declines to outline the actual costs of adding the unit. In 2006, however, the province contributed $1.7-million to the project, describing it in a press release as “an environmentally safe rendering and recycling system” to dispose animal carcasses.

Meanwhile, Montague says he will be using a $1.5-million disintegration system devised by the Nova Scotia-based John Kearns Waste Systems. With the unit he estimates having the capacity to dispose of 20 tons of material three times day. The company’s website says the system eliminates the effect of carcinogenic materials, produces an inert residue void of any organic or nutritive value and has stack emissions free of contaminants.

Montague says both the cattle and dairy boards should put together a program that generates money along the lines of an insurance policy. “If the farmer doesn’t have to use it, that’s fine,” he explains. “But if he does need insurance, it’s there to be used. Besides, I just don’t see the money being there in the OMAFRA budget.”

Industry stakeholders, however, don’t see on-farm disposal as a viable alternative.

Paul Stiles, assistant manager of the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association, says while it appears OMAFRA may be somewhat committed to expanding that option in the new regulations, “we hope the ministry will continue to support the collectors. On-farm disposal is not our preferred option.”

Dairy Farmers of Ontario spokesman Wes Lane says on-farm disposal isn’t practical. “We don’t have the answers but the issue must be addressed.” BF