The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced a new plan to use biochemical fuels such as bovine brains that infect mad cow disease. In December last year, the United States had explicitly banned human consumption of parts of cattle suspected of suffering from mad cow disease, including bovine brain, bovine bone, bull's eye, bovine spine, and bovine small intestine, mainly because these organs may have mad cow disease virus. According to the above new plan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will launch a 50 million U.S. dollar loan guarantee program to help small businesses in agricultural areas convert cow brains and other highly dangerous bovine organs into "bioenergy." Bill Hagy, deputy director of the Department of Rural Development of the US Department of Agriculture, pointed out that the purpose of this pilot project is to promote commercial interests and find ways to use cow body organs to develop new energy sources. However, he stressed that it is not yet clear whether the plan is for other purposes than the production of feed for these organs. Some consumer groups also called on the Bush administration to take more stringent measures to prohibit the use of "threat materials" for the feed-fed pigs, chickens and other animals. Previous feeds made using bovine organs have been banned from feeding cows. A spokesman for the U.S. National Beef Beef Association said that his association supports the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision. In addition, if stricter bans are imposed on high-risk bovine organs, the US soybean futures market will be greatly affected. If these organs cannot be used to make feed, soybean meal may be used as a substitute. At present, the bovine organs that come out of the US slaughter plant are sent to another factory for processing feed, cosmetics, etc. Last year, the United States slaughtered more than 35 million cows.