Archive

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
POULTRY producers are being offered an odd sideline by the University of Delaware, the USA: creating a computer processor from chicken feathers. Its ACRES programme – Affordable Composites from Renewable Sources – says a chip made from soyabean resin and feathers conducted electrical signals twice as quickly as through a conventional silicon chip.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE UNIVERSITY of Queensland, Australia, has developed a method of making leather out of chicken skin that it says will be extremely useful for products requiring drip, notably steering wheels, driving gloves and mobile telephone covers. The university’s John Dingle says leather could provide another use for old chickens than pet food.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice’s Court of First Instance has ruled that EU member governments have the right to ban four antibiotics as additives in animal feed, saying this was “not a disproportionate measure given the need to protect public health.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank has approved a US$18.5 million-loan to Uruguay to support its Foot and Mouth Disease Emergency Recovery Project, an emergency operation to help alleviate the economic impact of the recent outbreak of the disease. The project will pay for comprehensive vaccination, improved disease surveillance and border health checks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation has tried to scotch the claim that eating less meat in rich countries could help to reduce hunger in developing countries. Jelle Bruinsma, an editor of an FAO study looking ahead to 2030, says that the statement is erroneously based on the assumption that cereals used as animal feed would be freed up for human consumption in developing countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler has looked ahead to reforms in Europe’s food production system beyond Brussels established Agenda 2000 changes. Speaking at the European Policy Centre, he said that the Commission was very keen to decoupling per-head payments from production, replacing them with a single income payment per farm, based on its historical level of premiums.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has recommended that systematic testing for antibiotic residues should be introduced for all imports of Brazilian poultry meat, products and preparations, after checks revealed that cargoes have been contaminated with restricted nitrofurans.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW campaign to promote the merits of European wines is set to open in selected off-licences and other retail outlets in the next few months following agreement by the European Commission to pay half the cost.

The project, which involves spending of Pounds 3.6 million in total for all the EU countries, will stress the quality characteristics of European wines and focus on regional identification.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States has joined forces with Australia, Argentina, Canada, New Zealand and other large drinks exporters, in proposing that a register of geography-linked names of wines and spirits – now being discussed at the World Trade Organisation – should be voluntary, carrying little legal weight.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ARGENTINA has launched the first stage of disputes proceedings at the World Trade Organisation in a case against the European Union, which it accuses of breaking WTO rules by using its wine-making regulations to block imports of certain Argentine wines.…