PRESS RELEASE: The European Green Deal

The European Feed Industry committed to supporting further development of sustainable livestock and aquaculture systems

FEFAC, representing the EU compound feed and premix industry, is offering its full cooperation to help achieve the new EU Commission’s objectives laid down in the “Green Deal, for the journey towards carbon-neutral livestock and aquaculture production in Europe. The European feed industry has been a long-time investor in research and development to provide innovative animal nutrition solutions to farmers, helping them to address the challenge of climate change. FEFAC’s members are recognised world leaders in resource efficiency & applied animal nutrition science, upgrading and converting low-value co-products of the food and biofuel industry into high-value foodstuffs of animal origin (e.g. meat, dairy, eggs and fish).

FEFAC Green Deal contribution: FEFAC Overview of Current Feed Industry Sustainability Initiatives to support sustainable livestock farming and aquaculture system

FEFAC President Nick Major highlights that the EU livestock and aquaculture sector only represents 10% of all GHG emissions in the EU. He recalls that feed production and products of animal origin are an essential component of sustainable food systems: “Farm animals including fish consume 86% ‘non-human edible’ feedingstuffs, according to FAO, meaning the feed sector plays a key part in a truly circular economy, by keeping and upgrading nutrients present in a vast range of co-products, like sunflower & rapemeal,  sugarbeet pulp & molasses, brewers grains and wheat bran”. Nick Major notes that FEFAC and its members have invested heavily in new Product Environmental Footprint measurement tools (PEFCR Feed for Food-Producing Animals) and Feed LCA databases (EC Feed database and the GFLI Database). He stressed that by entering the age of “big data” management and artificial intelligence, the industry will be able to further improve its environmental performance by closing nutrient cycles, reducing GHG emissions, while improving biodiversity, thus allowing livestock farming and aquaculture to be part of the solution in tackling climate change”.

FEFAC members are developing the Feed Sustainability Charter 2030, setting out 5 key ambitions, with additional industry commitments, which will sustain the EU’s holistic approach of sustainable food systems within the “Green Deal” package. The Charter will be adopted and published at the XXIX FEFAC Congress in Antwerp on 4 June 2020.