October 10, 2013
Feed federation and FAO address feed sustainability, food security challenges
The International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) and the United Nations'' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) held their 12th annual meeting to address the challenges of ensuring sustainability in animal feeding, feed safety and food security.
The said annual meeting was held on October 3-4, 2013 at the FAO Headquarters.
José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the FAO, addressed IFIF representatives and highlighted the importance of working together with the private sector to tackle the challenges facing the feed and food chain. Graziano commended the long-standing partnership between IFIF and the FAO Animal Production & Health Division, underlining the importance of feed in global foodsafety and security.
In addition to the new FAO strategy on partnership with the private sector, environmental sustainability was a central theme of the meeting, with the presentation of a number of concrete projects aimed at improving the sustainability of livestock production. This included a presentation of preliminary results from the IFIF / FEFANA Specialty Feed Ingredients Sustainability project (SFIS), an update on the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) partnership, a first report on an IFIF supported AFIA / FEFAC initiative to develop common feed life cycle assessments (LCA) guidelines, and updates on the work of the Global Agenda of Action (GAA).
The meeting also discussed priorities at regional level and explore opportunities for collaboration, such as capacity building, with IFIF''s national and regional association members. Other topics of discussion included the IFIF FAO collaboration on the development of global feedstatistics, as well an update of animal feed related work within Codex Alimentarius.
The agenda for the upcoming Seventh International Feed Regulators Meeting (IFRM) on January 27-28, 2014 was also discussed, which brings together the FAO, IFIF as well as international regulators and experts from across the world to discuss critical feed issues facing governments and industry today.