CRA-W (Agricultural Research Centre) is a public research organization. It currently employs 450 people, including 120 scientists split in 7 departments. The expertise available from this multidisciplinary research institution covers the following areas; plant breeding, genetic engineering, plant pathology, plant genetic resources management, farming systems, agricultural engineering, biomass and renewable energy, crop and animal husbandry, agro-meteorology, feed and food quality. Its expertise has permit to this research institute to be pioneer in the development of alternative methods based on PCR and on NIR microscopy techniques (NIR microscope and NIR camera). Moreover, it has participated to the organization of three European collaborative studies related to the topic by the preparation of the samples analyzed and by compiling and interpreting the results. CRA-W is frequently consulted for its wide expertise by the national and European official authorities, European official control laboratories and by the representatives of the feed sector. It has been also the editor of two books related to the project. CRA-W is pioneer in the development of NIR microscopic methods for the detection of animal products in feed. CRA-W has been nominated as CRL-AP for the 2006-2011 period.
Expertise in feedsafety projects
CRL-AP (EU) – Community Reference Laboratory for Animal Proteins (http://www.crl.cra.wallonie.be ) – project coordinator
FARIMAL (Be) – New methodology for the species determination of animal products in feeds: combination of micro-spectroscopy techniques and Real-Time PCR (http://www.cra.wallonie.be/research/themes/index.php?fiche=213 ) – project coordinator
FEEDSAFETY platform (CRA-W – IRMM – RIKILT) – Network gathering institutes working to the development and validation of analytical methods for the feed sectors (http://www.feedsafety.org/) – project coordinator
SAFEED-PAP (FP6) – Detection of presence of species-specific processed animal proteins in animal feed (https://safeedpap.feedsafety.org/) – project coordinator
SIMBAGFEED (FP5) – Screening and Identification Methods for official control of Banned Antibiotics and Growth promoters in Feedingstuffs (http://www.rikilt.wur.nl/NL/onderzoek/Projecten/EU+projecten/Output+SIMBAG+FEED/) – project invited partner
STRATFEED (FP5) – Strategies and methods to detect and quantify mammalian tissues in feedingstuffs (http://www.stratfeed.cra.wallonie.be ) – project coordinator
Project team
Contact
Dr Vincent Baeten
CRA-W
Chaussée de Namur, 24
B-5030
Gembloux
BelgiumTel : +32 (0)81 62 03 55
Fax : +32 (0)81 62 03 88
Email : baeten@cra.wallonie.beWeb site : http://www.cra.wallonie.be
Staff
Vincent Baeten, Gilbert Berben, Pierre Dardenne, Juan Antonio Fernandez Pierna, Olivier Fumiere, Philippe Vermeulen, Pascal Veys