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On Tuesday, the American Feed Industry Association’s Louise Calderwood participated in a listening session at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine on the regulation of animal foods with certain claims. This issue is one the AFIA has been following for quite some time (see related blog posts here and here), given its hindrance to getting products to the marketplace that would help the U.S. get one step closer to meeting its food security and climate goals.

As we previously reported, the American Feed Industry Association has been working to promote U.S. feed additives in the Chinese market. Over the past few months, with the use of funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Market Access Program (MAP), the AFIA has been working with a communications/media firm in China to distribute informational articles on ag-media websites and social media platforms.

Remember the opening scene from the iconic television series, Star Trek? You know the one, where the Starship Enterprise glides by as the narrator exclaims that her intrepid crew will “boldly go where no man has gone before!” What the average viewer might not know is that the fictional craft USS Enterprise’s inaugural voyage started in 2245 and by the time her third pilot, the illustrious James T. Kirk, manned her helm in 2264, she had been engaged in interplanetary exploration for 19 years. Almost as long as the American Feed Industry Association has been urging the Food and Drug Administration to modernize its approach to the use of marketing claims for innovative animal food additives with proven efficacy and safety!

This week, the American Feed Industry Association’s President and CEO Constance Cullman penned an op-ed in The Hill on the Food and Drug Administration’s “archaic” policy for reviewing environmentally beneficial animal feed and feed ingredients, which has put U.S. farmers at a competitive disadvantage globally. She said it is time for the agency to develop a solution that allows these products to come to market quickly so that farmers can use them now.

Twice a year, those interested in the animal food regulatory space make the trek to attend the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) meetings. Sometimes those treks require patience while traveling through blizzards in the winter. Sometimes, it requires fortitude to handle being in business clothes instead of in shorts watching a baseball game during the summer. For both meetings, it requires preparation from all parties to make sure the AAFCO business gets due consideration and discussion. Your American Feed Industry Association staff are there on your behalf and are busy preparing for the upcoming AAFCO annual meeting, happening Aug. 3-6 in St. Louis, Mo.

Rendering is an important part of the agriculture industry, as it offers an environmentally friendly way of recycling materials that would otherwise be wasted. In fact, rendered products can comprise up to 5% or more of some animal diets. It is an interesting topic to learn about, and I enjoyed learning bits and pieces about it when my boyfriend worked in rendering, which made me more excited to work on this topic!

In 1991, Dr. Mike Hutjens, emeritus professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois, defined four key factors for evaluating feed additives: Response, Returns, Research and Results (Hutjens, 1991). Dr. Hutjens later added 3 additional Rs for industry professionals to consider: Repeatability, Reliability and Relativity. Feed additives that claim to reduce methane emissions from cattle will emerge as potential tools to mitigate climate change. The pressure to consider their use will be significant. However, we must consider these seven Rs when evaluating the efficacy, economics and safety of feed additives to inhibit enteric methane emissions from cattle without impacting animal performance, farm profitability or consumer acceptance of the technology.

In recent years, an increasing number of foods are being marketed and labeled as free of genetically modified (GM) ingredients. For milk, meat or eggs, this means the animals these foods come from are fed exclusively non-GM feed. You need to look no further than current headlines to see the attention given to rising food prices, the need to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other sustainability elements.