Soy sourcing advance In contrast to Covid-19 and Brexit, the pace of change in relation to global awareness of climate change shows no sign of slowing, a fact highlighted in mid-December by Nutreco’s launch of an ‘industry-first’ soy sourcing policy, designed to prevent deforestation. Framed as part of the Dutch company’s Sustainability Roadmap,


which currently runs through to 2025, the new policy has been created to help simplify soy certification for Nutreco’s procurement teams with the aim of completely removing deforestation from its supply chain over the next four years. The expanding production of soy and oil palm is blamed for


causing the destruction of 500,000 hectares of rainforest, peatland, and savannahs each year. Given Nutreco’s annual raw material intake includes around 1.5 million tonnes of soy-based ingredients and 80,000 tonnes of oil palm products, this is an issue which the company felt it had to address. Making sure that all soy intake is deforestation-free by 2025 won’t be easy, but the company’s commitment to the cause is commendable. Having taken some time to study Nutreco’s extremely detailed policy


guidance document, written for its certification experts to follow, I have to admit to suffering a degree of ‘brain-fade’ long before the half-way point. What is impressive, though, is that the company has declared its ambitions in full transparency, enabling far better-informed deforestation readers than me to chart the company’s progress from now on. It always seems unfair, however, that those who put such plans and ambitions out there for public scrutiny, often end up being criticised when bits of the programme don’t perform as intended. I hope Nutreco’s plan works, and that it’s given a fair chance to succeed by deforestation watchers around the world. It’s definitely an important step forward. Having already referred to the slowly departing President Trump,


I was keen to add a word of hope concerning the next White House resident, Joe Biden. The early signs from the Biden/Harris administration are certainly positive in terms of their clear and supportive climate change commitment. The President-elect’s transition website, for example, carries a


statement of intent to recommit the US to the Paris Agreement on climate change, alongside a pledge that he will ‘go much further than that’. This means the US will once again be taking a lead on climate change issues globally, encouraging other countries to ‘ramp up’ their domestic climate targets and preparing the US itself to face what is described as the world’s ‘persistent climate crisis’ The Biden/Harris aim, in fact, is to ensure the US is ‘never caught flat-footed again’ on climate issues.


Sustainable feed focus Staying with the theme of climate resilience and climate change mitigation, the German Feed Association (DVT) and FEFAC are combining forces on January 21 to run a session on ‘sustainable feed for sustainable food’. An expert panel, assembled by the two bodies, will present


‘global and local opportunities for reducing the ecological footprint of feedstuffs for individual species’. They will also debate potential solutions concerning the procurement of agricultural raw materials, with soy being used with stakeholders as an example product.


PAGE 14 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 FEED COMPOUNDER


And algae Always on the lookout for new feed solutions, I couldn’t resist the following news release headline: ‘Sustainable algae-fed salmon available across all 50 US states for the first time’. The item, unveiled in early December, referred to a partnership


venture backed by Veramaris, the Netherlands-based producers of omega-3 fatty acids for animal nutrition from microalgae, and KnowSeafood, a new online seafood retailer. Veramaris, which produces its marine algae oil in Blair, Nebraska,


is claiming a ‘breakthrough innovation’ which provides twice the level of EPA & DHA Omega-3 compared to fish oil. This, says the company, allows it to raise the nutritional profile of the fish it feeds, while reducing the fish-based ingredients in salmon feed. What’s more, Veramaris also states that its algal oil is ‘entirely


sustainable’.


EU targets for 2021 The new ‘slimmed down’ EU kicked off 2021 with a renewed statement of intent, predictably focusing first on how to deal with the impact of the pandemic while also delivering on a range of other priorities. On the others list, top attention was given to climate change,


migration, and the forging of a new relationship with the UK. The headline agriculture task, in addition, is to finalise negotiations on the latest reforms to the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy for 2022-27. This will include an alignment with the European Green Deal and the community’s environmental objectives. The future of European farmers, both those who operate from


within the EU and those who no longer do, will obviously be critical to the state of our own industry in 2021 and beyond. With everything that happened last year, it was little surprise that EU compound feed production (EU 27 + UK) declined by 2.2% compared with 2019, based on forecasts provided by FEFAC members. The early 2020 lockdowns certainly impacted the meat sector,


particularly through the disruption of hotel, restaurant, and catering businesses. Now, with a raft of new 2021 lockdowns announced for January and, in some cases, February as well, the prospect of a return to eating out has receded once more, potentially pushing any worthwhile recovery of consumer confidence, and spending, into the second half of the year. The continued impact of African Swine Fever (ASF) and Avian


Influenza (AI) on pig and poultry production are both stubborn and extremely negative factors, each with clear feed business implications. While having been driven partly out of mind in recent months by the urgency of dealing with Covid-19, both these animal diseases are quietly expanding their impact on livestock output and feed sales and must not be ignored, going forward. The ultimate lesson we need to draw from Covid-19, ASF, and


AI, surely, is that they have each become new 21st Century constants and will require to be managed long-term by high level biosecurity, both animal and human. And that’s irrespective of whatever vaccines and additional treatments may emerge to help us keep future infection levels under control.


Comment section is sponsored by Compound Feed Engineering Ltd www.cfegroup.com


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