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Home > News > INTERVIEW: Meeting the Global Feed Industry's Challenges Through Coordination
INTERVIEW: Meeting the Global Feed Industry's Challenges Through Coordination
31 Jan 2012
By IFIF
INTERVIEW: Meeting the Global Feed Industry's Challenges Through Coordination Source: Feedinfo News Service (dated 30/01/2012)
30 January 2012 – The global feed industry is under increasing pressure to supply sustainable, safe and healthy feed.
With the expanding global population, which is forecast to exceed 9 billion people by 2050, comes an associated higher demand for animal protein and, therefore, feed. Meanwhile the industry has also faced increasing commodity prices and volatility over the last decade.
Globally, industrial feed production was close to an estimated 870 million tons in 2011 and the industry is worth approximately USD 350 billion. The individual tasked with ensuring unity and coordination of the industry and relations with global stakeholders and regulators is Alexandra de Athayde.
De Athayde is in her first year as Executive Director for the International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF).
IFIF – which comprises the whole feed chain from national feed associations, feed related organisations, supplier associations to corporate members worldwide – represents and promotes the global feed industry. Its members represent over 80% of the global animal feed industry.
Feedinfo News Service spoke to de Athayde about her objectives and future predictions for the industry.
Commodities
IFIF says the industry must widely adopt financial risk tools in order to make any necessary rapid adjustments when faced with increasing commodity prices and market volatility. “The main difficulty of high price volatility is the inability of our livestock customers to pass on large price swings on commodity markets to the consumers of livestock products,” de Athayde explains. “The feed industry therefore is supporting attempts by regulators to raise transparency in agricultural commodity markets and maintain competitiveness of these markets. It also welcomes the G-20 declaration seeking to improve market transparency of global agricultural markets.”
IFIF anticipates feed production will grow by at least 3% a year and de Athayde says this challenge must be met with better technology. She argues continued innovation is required to raise efficiency of feed and livestock production. “Regulators can help by reducing administrative burdens for operators and feed control bodies alike by reducing tariff and non – tariff barriers to international trade of raw materials, feed and food without compromising feed safety standards,” she adds. With prices for corn and soybean meals moving upwards due to higher demand and increased competition for land, the feed industry requires more working capital. “This is a big challenge given the almost global credit crunch we are experiencing as a result of the crisis in the US, Europe and other world regions,” she says. Alexandra de Athayde
Executive Director of IFIF
De Athayde adds that an important development in raw material supplies is the use of co-products from the growing production of renewable energies. While growth rates have diminished recently, IFIF still forecasts that the renewable energies sector will continue to maintain and increase its market share in the supply of mainly protein-rich co-products to the feed industry.
Feed Additives
IFIF anticipates that there will be significant growth for both existing and innovative specialty feed ingredients.
De Athayde highlights that as alternative raw material sources increase to address the significant rise in cost of feed ingredients, so will the need for nutritional additives. She adds that the properties of these raw materials might also require different technological additives for proper handling and use.
Broadening to a global perspective, both the growing global demand of animal products and the focus on sustainability demand agricultural intensification in certain regions. Possible solutions include not only non-antibiotic growth promoters but also zootechnical additives that contribute to the feed conversion ratio or other aspects of efficient livestock production, according to de Athayde.
When it comes to feed safety, de Athayde notes that mycotoxin inactivators are gaining an increased interest and says IFIF also predicts a significant interest in additives that will contribute to the management of pathogenic microorganisms.
Producers are also becoming increasingly interested in how feed affects the quality of the animal product, “opening a new door to a whole range of additives acting in this niche,” says de Athayde.
Additionally she says there is no doubt that aquaculture will be part of the answer to the growing protein demand. “A lot of research is being done on feed in this area, with use of diversified feed additives both for nutritional purposes and technological ones. Technological advances in feed additives are critical to meeting the challenges that the feed industry and livestock production in general are facing due to its growth and diversification.”
Global Feed Expectations IFIF anticipates significant feed production growth in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Brazil has been the least expensive global feed and animal producer but its strong currency has diminished that position. “Nowadays, Argentina and the US are very competitive, and often more economical. We also expect to see wider geographic Europe, such as Russia and Ukraine, and certain regions in Africa catching up quickly as they adopt modern animal production systems at a high pace of development to meet growing local demand and also develop their own export capacity.”
However, de Athayde adds that each country has its limitations and it is therefore important to unite the feed chain to overcome difficulties. “This is feasible because the main feed additive producers, premix producers, and integrators are global companies and they use similar technology, for example in management and production processes.”
However, she explains that in practice the global companies have to adhere to different regulations in almost every country, which can be extremely costly and inefficient. Therefore IFIF would like to see “ever-greater international harmonisation of regulations”, and, with the the FAO, the organisation annually gathers feed regulators and feed industry representatives from around the globe to discuss international cooperation.
Trade De Athayde says that IFIF’s members are currently experiencing a number of tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade, including subsidies, import and export quotas. “Often regulatory barriers do not consider the latest science and risk-proportionate management measures,” she states. “We also believe that in today’s global economy, all countries depend on functioning open markets to ensure their requirements regarding feed grain or micro ingredients or other agro-supplies imports,” she adds. De Athayde cites an example of a recent trip to Brazil, which is one of the top producers of grains and food in the world. “Nevertheless, I was told that Brazil imports around USD 20 billion per year in fertilizers, agrochemicals, and feed micro ingredients,” she says.
Safety One of the key tasks for IFIF is to promote safe and innovative processing technologies, and to work to help set stringent and effective international regulatory standards. “One of the challenges is that on top of the 870 million tons of the global production of feed produced by the feed industry, around 300 million tons of feed is produced directly by on farm mixing,” de Athayde explains. “This poses challenges as food safety authorities do not regularly audit mixing by farmers and regulatory authorities only inspect when there is a problem. IFIF believes it is vital for the feed industry and for the sustainability of the whole feed and food chain that clear standards apply throughout the whole feed chain. We believe both industrial and on farm mixers should be expected to follow the same standards and feed safety processes.” In order to promote good manufacturing practice and higher feed safety standards worldwide, in 2010 the IFIF and FAO published and launched the “Feed Manual of Good Practices” for the Feed Industry. In 2012, it will be available in four additional languages: Arabic, Chinese, French and Spanish.
IFIF is also contributing to the Codex Intergovernmental Task Force on Animal Feeding, which is developing guidelines intended for governments on how to apply the existing Codex risk assessment methodologies to the various types of hazards related to contaminants/residues in feed ingredients. PAP IFIF’s stance on the lifting of the ban on the use of processed animal protein (PAP) in non-ruminant feed in the EU is a favourable one. She says that IFIF believes that European PAP producers developed a safer production process and have been applying it successfully for many years in Europe, leading to the near-eradication of BSE. “The feed industry is the best channel to use such a high value protein source and we believe that all safety issues have been addressed at OIE and EU level. The lifting of the EU feed ban for non-ruminant PAP would be welcomed by IFIF members, provided it is done under effectively regulated and practical conditions. “However we do not consider that the currently proposed zero-tolerance provision for intra-species recycling is supported by science. This measure would actually prevent usage of the non-ruminant PAP outside the aqua feed chain.”
GMO IFIF takes the view that GMO cultivation is an important technology capable of providing sustainable solutions to increase yield, while lowering the presence of such undesirable substances as aflatoxins. This is particularly important in view of meeting future challenges of dwindling natural resources combined with growing global population.
However, de Athayde says she anticipates that the feed industry will continue to provide non-GM feed solutions to meeting particular niche market demands in certain world regions, including organic feed.
She adds that new feed processing technology and feed additives could allow further improvement of feed conversion rates of 30% and more per species.
In addition, she anticipates that improved animal genetics and housing systems will also contribute to further significant productivity and efficiency gains.
Consumer Concerns De Athayde says that there is no doubt that consumers expect high quality and safety along the entire feed and food production chain and that IFIF believes there is an opportunity to communicate better what the feed industry is doing to meet safety and sustainability objectives.
One of IFIF’s goals is to improve this communication and she says social media can help, just as it can aid to quickly identify and raise issues of concern for consumers.
"The feed industry has accomplished some important steps to strengthen food safety processes. Consumers deserve to hear that message," she says.
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