Slaughterhouses handling cattle over 30 months of age (OTMs) have been granted about two extra weeks to apply for a federal support program.
The application deadline for the initial phase of the federal government’s one-year, $25 million abattoir competitiveness program has been extended to Aug. 27 from Aug. 16 (Monday) “to allow eligible recipients more time to take advantage of the program,” the government said in a release Friday.
The program is open to federally, provincially and territorially inspected cattle slaughter facilities that slaughtered OTMs in Canada during the 2009 and 2010 calendar years, based on their 2010 production of specified risk materials (SRMs) from OTMs.
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Grants from the program are to be based on the volume of SRMs produced, calculated as 58 kilograms per OTM animal and 55 cents per kg of SRMs.
Payments under the program will be based on two time periods, with an initial payment based on January to June 2010, and a final payment based on July to December 2010.
Separate applications are required for each payment period (“initial” and “final”), the government noted Friday, adding that applicants who don’t apply for an initial payment can still apply for the final payment, but on the basis of their production of SRMs from OTMs during the final payment period only.
SRMs are the tissues known to harbour the misshaped proteins that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in infected cattle, including brains, spinal cords and attached nerve ganglia.
All SRMs must be removed from carcasses at slaughter for Canada to remain recognized by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) as a “controlled risk” country for BSE.
But disposal remains a challenge for packers who can’t ship those materials for rendering. SRMs are banned from use in food, animal feeds, pet foods and fertilizers.
The abattoir competitiveness program, pledged in March’s federal budget and launched early last month, is expected to help Canadian slaughterhouses maintain “critical” OTM slaughter capacity in this country while the industry “undertakes efforts to become more innovative and competitive when dealing with specified risk materials.”
The program is scheduled to wrap up by March 31, 2011.
