World Grain - February 2022 - 36

Feed Quarterly
Sustainability
a hot topic at IPPE
Event returns after a one-year absence with more than 1,100 exhibitors
by Susan Reidy and Arvin Donley
W
The Expo
featured more
than 1,100
exhibitors
showcasing
their latest
equipment for
the poultry,
meat and feed
industries.
ith an increased focus on sustainability in
agriculture, the American Feed Industry
Association (AFIA) is continuing to develop
tools to help the feed industry understand and share its
sustainability efforts.
" Our goal within the feed space is to be able to leverage
each other's expertise, efforts and resources to really be
able to make an impact when it comes to sustainability, "
said Constance Cullman, president and chief executive
officer of the AFIA, during the International Production
and Processing Expo (IPPE), held Jan. 25-27 in Atlanta,
Georgia, US. " We also want to be very coordinated in
how we talk about sustainability because we have one hell
of a good story already. That doesn't mean we don't have
room for improvement. "
There is increased attention on feed and feed production
in terms of sustainability from multiple groups,
Cullman said.
" More and more organizations would love to focus
on feed because feed touches every one of the protein
groups, " she said, adding that feed is a significant percentage
of protein's environmental footprint. " There's a lot
more focus on food and agriculture, a lot more specific
focus on feed. Going forward, it's not slowing down. "
To help address sustainability concerns, the AFIA is
working with IFEEDER on developing a sustainability
roadmap. One of the goals is to develop some real tools
that can be given to AFIA's membership to advance their
sustainability journey, Cullman said.
" We're also launching efforts to create linkages across
the food chain, " she said. " Because we are at that nexus,
we have the ability to reach up and down the food chain.
" We want to create that linkage so we're talking in a
common language and we're talking about common ways
of measuring things. We are a food system, so we need to
start talking like we are in a food system. "
The AFIA also is working with the Global Feed LCA
Institute (GFLI) on creation of a publicly available Animal
Nutrition Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) database.
" The mission is to have a database that is recognized as
a global reference for feed LCA data, " she said. " We're
trying to make sure we've got the best database out there
that can be consistently used across the industry so we can
know that we are actually comparing apples to apples. "
The database is feed specific, free to use on an aggregated
basis and is based on a methodology that was developed
by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
It looks at 16 impact categories and is updated and reassessed
annually with quarterly updates of new data sets.
The information can be used to see where a company
is having specific challenges, determine strengths and
weaknesses, look at different scenarios in feed formulation
and more.
" It's designed to help improve the internal processes of
a company, so it has a better handle on how it compares to
the overall database, " Cullman said.
New data is being added about Brazilian soybeans,
rendering products, former foodstuffs, marine ingredients
and feed additives.
" We all have aspirations, we set goals and we know we
can be an industry that can be a solution provider, " she
said. " I see the database as the proof. This is our ability to
36
February 2022 / World Grain / World-Grain.com
Photos by Arvin Donley and Susan Reidy
http://www.World-Grain.com
World Grain - February 2022

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