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U.S. animal nutrition products hold a valuable place in the global marketplace. In 2022, the overall export value for feed, feed ingredients and pet food was $7.5 billion and the total volume of exports of these products was 9 million metric tons.

Not many know what happens behind the scenes here at the American Feed Industry Association. This well-oiled machine may look easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy (as my Pilates instructor says) from the outside, but behind our closed doors, you’ll find dual, sometimes triple, computer monitors; multiple Excel spreadsheets open with trade data and colorful graphs; dozens of browser pages open with research; partially drafted Word documents; scribbled post-it notes; and LOTS and LOTS of caffeine. Well, I can’t speak for the rest of the AFIA, but that’s what it looks like at my desk, and I can tell you, it is all worth it when we score a win for our members and industry.

IFIF, or “If-If” as it is called outside the United States, is not just something you say when you are “iffy” about something. The American Feed Industry Association is not at all iffy about IFIF and its mission. The International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) provides a unified voice and leadership for the global animal feed industry. Additionally, IFIF represents the global feed community in multilateral forums such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Trade Organization (WTO), World Health Organization (WHO), World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) and the Codex Alimentarius (Codex).  

If you or your customers export animal-based feed or pet food, you know how heavily the industry relies on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). In many cases, you can’t export a feed or pet food without some form of APHIS health certificate or approval. In recent years, getting the documentation needed to export has been more than a headache due to ongoing agency staffing and funding issues, the pandemic and the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) crisis.

“Team Trade” (aka Gina Tumbarello and myself) do several different jobs at once for American Feed Industry Association members. Most important is answering members’ questions and helping solve their day-to-day trade snags. But another important aspect of our work is opening market access to help interested AFIA members gain more market share in a country of interest by providing a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges that exist in that market.

Remember speed dating? Those magical minutes when you sat across from a stranger and tried to ascertain if there was a spark of emotion or maybe if it was love at first sight? Well, that is exactly what the U.S. Agriculture Export Development Council (USAEDC) Annual Attaché Seminar feels like! Just kidding, but the seminar is often compared to speed dating.

In late January, the American Feed Industry Association held its annual Pet Food Conference, where we recognized our “Friends of Pet Food” award winners and discussed several emerging topics in the burgeoning pet food space.

2021 proved to be a fabulous year for U.S. animal food exports! The latest data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that our industry’s exports grew 22% in value in 2021 compared to 2022, when including products such as feed additives, premixes, distillers dried grains with solubles, soybean meal, alfalfa and hay products, animal meals and pet food.