The International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held their 20th annual meeting to further strengthen their collaboration on critical issues to ensure safe, nutritious and sustainable feed and food.
The virtual meeting was officially opened by Badi Besbes, head animal production and genetic branch, FAO and Daniel Bercovici, IFIF chairman, who welcomed IFIF delegates representing over 80% of global compound feed production and reiterated their commitment to this longstanding partnership and agreed to continue to strengthen their work together to tackle the challenges facing the feed and food chain. “With the ongoing pandemic, collaboration at the international level is all the more important to ensure feed and food safety, food security and high-quality nutrition.” Besbes reaffirmed the importance of “collaboration between the public and private sector, as well as other stakeholders, to support the evidence-based key role of the livestock sector for achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly zero hunger. Also, for improving nutrition quality and supporting livelihoods worldwide in light of high-level global reflections on sustainable agriculture and food systems.”
Bercovici said, “our joint meeting with the FAO once again underlined our strong partnership as IFIF continues to support key FAO initiatives such as the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership, the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock and the Multi-stakeholder Partnership for Feed safety. The publication of the updated FAO and IFIF Manual on Good Practices for the Feed Sector was a key milestone as we work together on capacity development for feed safety. IFIF continues to contribute to FAO’s work to address antimicrobial resistance including advancing nutritional innovation to support animal health. IFIF looks forward to the 15th International Feed Regulators Meeting (IFRM), which is another great example of IFIF-FAO collaboration positively impacting the feed and food chain.”
Bercovici added that “together with the dedicated colleagues at the FAO, we contribute to building a solid science-based approach to support safe and sustainable animal nutrition to bring quality and affordable food to a growing world population, producing more with less and even better under diverse production systems. The high quality of exchanges and cooperation towards the SDGs continue to build on our achievements and together with all IFIF members, I am pleased our relationship continues to strengthen year after year.”
Daniela Battaglia, livestock production officer at the Animal Production and Health Division of the FAO, said that “FAO and IFIF have a long-standing partnership and this meeting addressed a number of critical issues of common interest, such as the need for capacity development to ensure feed safety and the importance of collaborating to tackle the containment of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). FAO is committed to working with the private sector and the feed operators and believes that they can valuably contribute to make the livestock and food sectors more responsible and sustainable and to achieve important goals such as public health, and animal health and welfare.”
