In a previous article we spoke generally about the shortage of Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS). Here we will take a closer look at the impact of nature – droughts, bad crops and floods – on FBS availability.
Draughts or bad crops have a negative impact on animal breeding later resulting in the lack of certain animal by-products. This is expressed in two ways. First, lack of feed and water lead to a decreased pregnancy rate (the animals are stressed). Also due to lack of water and pasture farmers have to spend more money on purchasing additional supply. Where this is not possible, the animals are sent to slaughter. After an initial short peak in FBS supply (during the intensive slaughter and herd reduction) follows a long period of shortage (few animals are sent to slaughter and very few of them are pregnant). The severe drought across the USA in 2012 – 2013 lead to a huge reduction in the cattle numbers and to a shortage of FBS which has not been overcome yet.
Floods also have a negative impact on the FBS availability. In most regions of the world FBS is a seasonal product. This is due to the fact that there in certain periods of the year a larger number of animals get pregnant. If a country manufacturing FBS is affected by floods during the “high season” for FBS collection the pregnant animals may be there but due to floods roads are closed or even slaughter facilities are shut down. By the time the situation is normalized the high season for slaughter may be over. Severe floods like in Australia early 2011 lead to the start of a long shortage period for FBS in the country.
How the agricultural, economic and technical development of a country impact FBS availability will be the subject of our next post.
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