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Tell us if you think the long awaited decision from Europe’s top court determining that new plant breeding techniques (NPBTs) should be considered as GMOs and legislated for accordingly, will undermine efforts to make feed crops more sustainable. For example, low-phytate grains for feed, developed using such methods, could increase nutrient use efficiency in animal husbandry, reduce phosphorus levels in manure while also improving the environmental sustainability of livestock production.

The EU feed industry was the first sector to have its Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules​​ (PEFCR) officially approved by the EU Commission, back in February.

Nicolas Martin, policy advisor at FEFAC, told us the PEFCR provides a good basis for feed companies to get involved, to do their own reporting and starting measuring the evolution of their environmental performance. Will your company start doing this?

In June, we reported from the Roundtable on Responsible Soy's (RTRS) annual, two-day conference in Lille last week, as industry members discussed how to bring sustainable soy out of its niche and into the mass market. 

Global soybean production reached 336.7m tons in 2017/18, according the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)​​, of which, 299.4m tons went into animal feed. But within the global market, just 1-2% of soybean is certified sustainable and in 2017 only 2.2m tons of RTRS-certified soy was traded.  

Marina Born, president of the RTRS, in her opening remarks at the conference in Lille, said that while there had been “continuous, aggressive growth”​ of RTRS certified soy production – around a 30% increase in the last year – demand still had a way to go. ​

Is your feed company planning to source more responsibly produced soy this year?

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