IFEEDER Newsletter: Volume 8, Issue 10

November 7, 2023

Raising the Bar and the Brand

In the past two years, for every dollar industry members have contributed to the Institute for Feed Education and Research, we’ve doubled it. By pursuing grant dollars from federal agencies and commodity stakeholders, your investment in IFEEDER allows us to create value-added returns in support of industry efforts no company would individually pursue.

Are you aware of the efforts IFEEDER has underway? Catch up quickly with the annual update that highlights our many projects. If there is something you’re interested in getting involved in, let me know.

We’re working hard to raise the awareness of IFEEDER to further our reach in supporting the animal feed and pet food industry. Earlier this year, we conducted an email campaign to spread the word to industry members about the sustainability toolkit, and that campaign just earned gold in the 2023 MarCom awards. Additionally, we’ll soon unveil a completely revamped website.

We’re working hard to raise the bar and the brand to show how much your investment matters.

IFEEDER Presents to the NASEM Nutrient Requirements for Swine Expert Panel

As a sponsor supporting development of the Nutrient Requirements for Swine's 12th edition, IFEEDER recently provided input to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) expert panel charged with the revision. An advisory committee of industry members coordinated IFEEDER’s input, which was presented by Chad Risley, Ph.D., of Berg+Schmidt America, LLC, with support from Brad Lawrence, of Novus International, Inc.

View IFEEDER’s input here. We’ll continue to support the expert panel as requested during the process. Thanks to Alltech, Balchem Corporation, Berg+Schmidt America, LLC, Chemlock Nutrition, DPI Global, Hamlet Protein, Inc., Novus International and Zinpro for contributing to the effort.

We still need $13,500 to fulfill IFEEDER’s commitment. If you would like to contribute to this effort, please contact me.

Individual Donations Matter

In October, the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) staff gathered at headquarters for two days of strategic planning. IFEEDER’s first annual staff cookie raffle was a success with 100% of AFIA staff contributions, totaling $4,600. Thanks AFIA team!

Individual contributions add up and are important to IFEEDER’s efforts to support the animal food industry. Consider a donation today>>

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What Am I Reading?

A Global Environmental Paw Print of Pet Food

While preparing a presentation last month for the Pet Food Association at Canada’s annual conference, I came across an article from 2020. Unlike its predecessors, this article evaluates pet food ingredients via their economic allocation versus mass allocation. This is important because previous articles have evaluated the footprint of pet food by treating animal by-products as human-grade food, but here they did not. In the article, the authors quantify the water use, land use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of dry dog and cat food.

Did you know the global agricultural land use footprint of dry dog and cat food is equivalent to two times the amount of land that makes up the United Kingdom? And that its GHG footprint is equivalent to the total emissions from the Philippines with 98 million people?

We often only think of feed’s footprint relative to livestock and poultry production, but with a pet population increasing globally as economies improve (in the U.S. alone, pets have tripled to around 157 million since the 1970s) – we may need to pay more attention. Unfortunately, this study only considers the footprint of dry pet food and not wet or fresh pet food.

Have you read the article? Share your thoughts!

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The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. If you would like to photocopy, otherwise reproduce, or publish any of the foregoing material, please contact AFIA’s Sarah Novak or Victoria Broehm at (703) 524-0810 for permission.