The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Jan. 26 it would ban the use of poultry litter in cattle feed. The news came a little over a month after the discovery of the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).The ban has some Alabama beef producers scrambling to find a viable feed replacement while poultry growers are concerned about how they will dispose of the additional litter, which in some areas already is a problem.Farmers like Joe Murphy of Pike County said the rules were changed too quickly and farmers weren’t given enough notice to adjust their operations.”It’s like they changed the rules in the middle of game,” said Murphy, 27, who along with his brother and father have 14 broiler houses. “Here it is the middle of the winter, and we’ve based our entire (beef) feeding operation around using litter as our primary protein source. It just doesn’t seem right.”The Murphys were feeding 2 to 4 tons of litter a day in their 200-cow beef cattle operation. They typically keep the calves through the winter–after they’re weaned–and sell them in the spring at 600-650 pounds. The ability to use poultry litter as feed and fertilizer weighed heavily on Joe Murphy’s decision to enter the poultry business.Murphy said he’s attended several seminars conducted by Auburn University and other research agencies that recommended poultry litter as a feed source. For Murphy, FDA’s reasons for the ban don’t even apply to him. His integrator, Charoen Pokphand, doesn’t use bone meal or meat byproducts in its feed, he said.”Poultry litter is a cheap by product that’s readily available,” Murphy said. “With the restrictions on spreading litter during the winter, this new ban is going to place a real burden on some farmers, including my family.”Ray Bean of Calhoun County understands exactly what Murphy means. Living farther north, Bean says he can’t rely on ryegrass like farmers south of Montgomery do. He’s based his poultry and beef operation on the ability to use litter as feed in the winter and fertilizer in the summer.Bean, his wife, Dale, and son, Josh, have eight broiler houses. The ability to use the litter as feed is what made their beef cattle operation profitable, Bean said.”The litter is the only thing that has kept us in a cost-effective mode of feeding cattle,” Bean said. “With the Confined Animal Feeding Operations (rules) that have stopped us from spreading litter on anything but an actively growing crop, using it as a feed was a good method of disposing it, and it was a good feed source. We mixed it with the cheapest byproducts we could find, usually distillers’ grain, soy hulls or rice bran. That allowed us to have a competitive edge with other areas of the country feeding cattle.”Alabama Farmers Federation Beef Director Perry Mobley said the Federation’s State Beef Committee discussed the ban during the Commodity Organizational Meeting Feb. 3 in Montgomery. He said prior to the ban, some Alabama producers had been contacted by cattle buyers and feed lot owners who said they would no longer purchase beef that had been fed poultry litter.”The ban definitely will create a hardship on some of our beef producers who depend heavily on composted poultry litter as a protein supplement,” Mobley said. “However, we will continue to fight to keep litter as a viable fertilizer source.”Mobley said the Federation will work with state and federal agencies in seeking relief for producers who have been adversely affected by the ban. “We will continue to support research for alternative, affordable protein sources for Alabama beef producers,” he said.Both Murphy and Bean are hopeful no more restrictions will be placed on using litter as a fertilizer. They said that would spell almost certain doom for the state’s poultry industry. With nitrate prices expected to reach $310 per ton this spring, Bean hopes more farmers will try using litter as a cheaper fertilizer source, helping to soften the blow from losing it as a feed this winter.”Auburn University has done countless studies that show feeding litter is safe,” Bean said. “I think this decision was a knee-jerk reaction to the BSE scare, and it isn’t based on sound science. If someone could show me that feeding litter is a danger, then I’d be all for the ban, but they haven’t done that.”If our government continues to put unnecessary restrictions on American farmers, we are going to be getting all our food from some third-world country that doesn’t have any restrictions. Then we won’t really know what we’re eating,” Bean added.But both farmers agreed, the state’s beef industry will suffer from the loss of broiler litter as a good, affordable feed additive. “In the beef industry, if you’re not putting on pounds, you not making dollars, and without the litter, it’s going to be hard for us to afford to feed cattle through the winter here. That’s the bottom line,” Bean said.Federation Poultry Director Jimmy Carlisle said the ban also will affect Alabama poultry growers who sell litter for feed.”Although most poultry litter in Alabama is used as fertilizer for hay and pastureland, this ban will reduce the marketing options for our growers,” Carlisle said. “Right now, however, our main concern is bolstering confidence in the U.S. food supply.”Carlisle said only about 5 percent of the poultry litter produced in Alabama is used for cattle feed.In addition to banning the feeding of litter, FDA is requiring the equipment, facilities or production lines in feed mills to be dedicated to non-ruminant animal feeds if the mills use protein prohibited in ruminant feed. FDA further said it plans to step up inspections of feed mills this year.The FDA ban also prohibits the feeding of table scraps to cattle. The agency said it intends to ban a wide-range of bovine-derived material from human food, dietary supplements and cosmetics. The new rules are consistent with restrictions issued by USDA in December which banned the use of brain and spinal cord tissue in human food as well as any meat from non-ambulatory cattle or meat that was obtained using a process called “advance meat recovery.”