Discipline B. Chemistry, Analytical Track 3: Animal Food Product Testing One of the primary goals of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture Feed, Fertilizer, and Ag Lime (FFAL) Laboratory is to support the Commercial Feed Act and Commercial Feed Regulations in their regulatory mission by providing accurate and timely testing services. The functions performed by staff in the FFAL Laboratory have a great and positive effect on the citizenry of the state. While much of the work done affects production agriculture, testing performed is important to pet and homeowners as well, whether in a rural or urban setting. For consumer protection all feed manufacturers, transporters, and distributors/retailers are subject to sampling to assure compliance with state and federal feed safety and labeling regulations. We are willing and able to perform the following analyses on animal food products: mycotoxin analyses to ensure compliance with toxic elements (genotoxic and carcinogenic compounds), nutritional analysis to verify nutrition deficiencies or toxicities, toxic metals analyses to ensure compliance with toxic elements. For this project, we propose to perform monensin surveillance with an annual minimum of 100 animal food samples for the next five years. We consider monensin in animal feed as a hazard? commodity pair that is specific to our region. The lab has a sampling agreement with the NDA Commercial Feed Program to specify the numbers and types of animal food samples that will be collected and analyzed for the NDA Feed, Fertilizer, and Ag Lime Laboratory. This sampling agreement will be renewed for each project year.
