The cost of food safety due to animal by-product regulation in Spain: who pays for it?

Abstract

This paper puts forward implications of the implementation of Regulation (EC) No. 1774/2002 in Spain, which regulates in an integrated manner all animal by-products that are not intended for human consumption with the maximum hygiene and environmental security. Farmers, slaughter houses, food industries, retailers, animal feed producers, fertilizer producers, transport and logistic businesses, renders, valorisation and waste management plants are activity sectors of great health, environment and economic importance and all of them play an important role in the implementation of the aforementioned regulation. This work analyses in detail the generation and management of the animal by-products in those different stages of the production chain of meat. The focus of the paper is on the transmission of the costs associated to the implementation of the regulation along the production chain. The results show an uneven distribution of the regulation costs, where the farmers face particularly high costs (which are, in general, subsidised by the Government). On the other hand, the transmission of costs to the final consumers depends on the type of animal we considered: for cattle and sheep, the lack of competitiveness in their markets also interferes in the costs transmission.