proposal to ban the substance. We have made these con- cerns very clear to the European Commission. In December, associations of poultry and egg farmers and feed producers from around Europe came together to sign an open letter to Commission Phil Hogan, entreating him not to remove this vital tool for protecting the food chain from infection. Many of us also took part in a public consultation run by the Com- mission in December, and submitted extensive feedback and evidence detailing the importance of formaldehyde in protecting the food chain. All of our efforts, however, were ignored by the institution. Our letter went unanswered, and within 12 hours of the public consultation closing the Commission had already taken the vote to ban formaldehyde in animal feed. We cannot under- stand how our feedback, which included almost 100 extensive submissions with technical annexes, could have been taken into account in this time, and are left wondering whether the consultation itself was just a rubber-stamping exercise.


Increase of Salmonella Despite the success of farmers bringing down rates of Salmo- nella, the danger again seems to be on the rise. The European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) in December revealed that Salmonella cases increased last year, and that the long-term trend of decreasing Salmonella prevalence in Europe has offi- cially come to an end. This comes amid large scale outbreaks of Salmonella in Poland and in feed in Germany. The next time there is an outbreak of Salmonella, and people again become marginally aware of the process involved in keeping our food safe, the blame will be placed at the door of the farmers and producers who work invisibly day in, day out to prevent outbreaks. People will say that we should have done more, taken more precautions. Perhaps when this happens, people can also bear in mind how difficult this job has become since our politicians decided to take away our most effective tools to protect the food chain, for their own partisan reasons.


▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 2, 2018


Feed is one of the main sources of Salmonella in- fections, keeping the bug under control without formaldehyde is a headache for both farmers and feed producers.


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