The
origin of EFMO goes back to the sixties when the need to exchange experience and
to start microbiological research in the field of feedstuffs was a consequence
of the development of farming practices and specialisation.
The
17th of June, 1971, 12 microbiologists met in Wuerzburg (Germany) and
founded a section of the IAG (International Analytical Group). Microscopists
were then already organised in the section
Microscopy.
The IAG is still very active throughout the world in the field of chemical analysis of
feeds and plants.
Already
in 1961, it was in Germany, at the research station of Speyer (LUFA), that the
first attempts of method standardisation were made by Dr. H.-L. Schmidt . He
collected in a large data bank the results of micro-organisms counts from
different feed types and ingredients. He used a simple plate count method. However
the chosen media were elaborated by this international group of microbiologists
from European countries (mainly Germany, but also Austria, Holland, Luxembourg,
France, Switzerland). The medium for the mould and yeast count as well as the
medium for bacterial counts have both kept the name
of his founder: Schmidt's agar. For decades, the evaluation of feed quality
was based on numbers gathered in the famous Schmidt Tables unofficially
circulating among feed producers and analysts. A large Pilot Study was undertaken by
the German LUFA laboratories between 1994 and 1996 in order to assess the
validity of the orientation values. This work and its main conclusions
have been published recently:
(Feed Magazine/Kraftfutter 6 (2006), pp. 16-23). Click here to download: 
The
section Microbiology of the IAG had yearly meetings with the microscopists until
1989. Then the abundance of different topics made it necessary to have separate
meetings.
EFMO was officially born from the Microbiology Group of the IAG on May
15th, 1996 in Speyer.
Over
the years, the meetings took place mainly in Germany, but also in other European
countries.
The
latest meetings and their topics are available here
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