Highlights of FEFAC-Nevedi Joint Public Annual Meeting 2022

FEFAC and Nevedi, representing respectively the European and Dutch feed industry, co-organised the 66^th FEFAC Public Annual meeting on 2 June 2022 in Utrecht, during the VICTAM/VIV Europe Expo. The meeting was on “EU Food & Feed autonomy in times of geopolitical crisis” and was attended by approximately 200 delegates. Highlights from the event can be found below.

Wolfgang Burtscher, DG AGRI Director General, gave the keynote speech, presenting the range of crisis measures that the European Commission developed recently in support of assuring food and feed security in Ukraine, the EU and at a global level. In the first panel session, the panellists Guido Landheer (Dutch Farm Ministry Deputy Director-General), Asbjørn Børsting (FEFAC President), Nick Major (GFLI Chair), Marije Klever (Chair of the Dutch Young Farmers Association NAJK) and Henk Flipsen (Nevedi Director) discussed the impact on EU feed sector resilience and EU Green Deal targets for the livestock sector together with Wolfgang Burtscher.

The second panel session discussed deforestation-free soy supply chains and was introduced by a (video) statement from Rasmus Prehn (Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture & Fisheries). He highlighted his country’s support for the introduction of due diligence and traceability requirements in the European Commission’s proposal for deforestation-free supply chains. The panellists Heleen van den Hombergh (Coordinator Collaborative Soy Initiative and Dutch Soy Platform & agro-commodity advisor IUCN Netherlands), Guilherme do Couto Justo (IDH Soy Programme Manager), Hugo Byrnes (Ahold Delhaize Vice-President Product Integrity), Jim Sutter (CEO US Soybean Export Council), Wei Peng (Soft Commodities Forum, LDC group) and Nicolas Coudry-Mesny (FEFAC Vice-President) pointed to practical challenges and unintended consequences of the European Commission proposal for deforestation-free supply chains.