Fishmeal in times of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

Fishmeal is a ground solid product obtained by removing most of the water and some or most of the oil from fish or fish waste. It contains 40 to 72 % of proteins that are rich in all the essential amino acids while the soymeal usually marketed contains only 45% proteins. Around 30.4 million tonnes of fish, representing 24% of the total world catch (both inland and marine), were reduced to fishmeal and fish oil in 1999, using mainly small oily fish (herrings, sardines, mackerel, anchovies, pilchards, sand eel, menhaden). Fishmeal is primarily utilized in the diets of poultry, pigs, fish and fur animals, which need high quality proteins. Fish oils are used for non-edible products such as varnishes, lubrication and waterproofing agents, and about half of all fish oils go into feeds used for aquaculture (aquafeeds).

Over the last years, growing concern about Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), the so-called mad cow disease related to the consumption of meals made from carcasses of ruminant and other animals (meat-and-bone meals or MBMs), has put tremendous pressure on governments to reinforce protection measures and provide assurance on the safety of animal food for human consumption.

Although there is no epidemiological evidence of the existence of any form of spongiform encephalopathy in fish and, a fortiori, no evidence of any risk of transmission to ruminants or other animals by fishmeal, the trade and utilization of fishmeal has nonetheless been affected. The main worry is the contamination of otherwise healthy fishmeal by MBMs in processing or packaging plants. Several consultations on BSE have been held in Europe since 1997. In December 2000, the EU temporarily prohibited the use of all animal proteins in animal feeds, pending a total re-evaluation of the implementation of the Community legislation in Member States. This ban does not apply to the feeding of fishmeal to animals other than ruminants, as long as such feeding is in accordance with conditions pertaining to sanitary requirements for fishmeal plants, transportation, storage, labelling and traceability of fishmeal consignments from production to utilization.

It is most likely that prohibiting the use of fishmeal for feeding ruminants will not have a significant impact on the international fishmeal market as the loss of the EU market is estimated at only 70 000 tonnes out of a world production of about 30 million tonnes. On the contrary, banning the feeding of other animal proteins to all animals has created a potential market of about 2 million tonnes to replace the forbidden animal proteins. This could dramatically increase the demand for fishmeal, and therefore its price - as well as the risk of adulterating fishmeal with other mammalian meat and bone meal. The latter situation is exacerbated by the fact that reliable routine techniques to detect corruption are still under scrutiny. The EU ban is still enforced which has created trade disputes that may require future WTO arbitration.

Another area of concern is the high dioxin levels found in some fishmeal and fish oils. Recent studies indicate that fishmeal and fish oil of European origin have dioxin levels up to 8 times as high as similar products from non-industrial regions, like the waters off Peru and Chile. The EU is planning to develop stricter limits on dioxins during 2001. In this case, solutions will include removing dioxins from the fishmeal or replacing the feed with soymeal that producers argue is less effective for feed because of its lower protein content and quality. Technology to lower the level of dioxins in fishmeal is now available.