(AP) — Beer breweries in Nebraska are sounding an alarm about a federal proposal that would put an end to their practice of giving spent grains to local farmers to use as cattle feed.

The practice is mutually beneficial. It not only gives farmers cheap and nutritious feed for cattle, it keeps breweries’ from having to pay the cost of hauling the spent grain to a landfill.

The federal Food and Drug Administration wants to require brewers to meet the same standards that livestock and pet-food manufactures must meet. That would include sanitary handling procedures, record-keeping and other food safety processes.

Several Lincoln breweries say those requirements would be too onerous, and they’d have to stop donating the spent grain.