Executive Director
ANAC – Animal Nutrition Association of Canada
The Canadian feed industry has faced an unprecedented number of challenges over the past five years. Through their dedication to feeding livestock, industry members rose to and overcame each one with strength and resiliency. Supporting our industry’s continued adaptability as we approach the rapidly evolving landscape of the future is an area of great focus for the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC), the national trade association of the Canadian livestock feed industry.
With this in mind, ANAC refreshed its strategic plan earlier this year. The new plan highlights key areas that ANAC will tackle over the next five years to safeguard the success of the feed and livestock industries in Canada. These areas include:
• Ensuring we have a regulatory system that supports innovation
• Developing tools to support industry resiliency in times of crisis
• Fostering an environment that continues to raise the bar for feed safety
• Nurturing environmental sustainability initiatives
PROMOTING INNOVATION WITHIN CANADA’S REGULATORY SYSTEM
Since 2011, ANAC has been working with government and stakeholders throughout the feed value chain to modernize the primary regulations that govern the Canadian feed industry. Seeking to modernize the Feeds Regulations, our collective efforts over the past 13-some years have aimed to align legislation with the realities of modern-day animal nutrition and industry practice.
With work on updating the regulations now nearing the finish line, our industry is eagerly anticipating the upcoming changes. The updated regulatory system will allow more efficient access to new and innovative ingredients and support quicker changes to regulatory requirements when new scientific advancements are made.
What’s more, these changes represent a shift in focus towards identification and control of feed and food safety risks, enabling industry and government oversight efforts to hone in on the key priorities for feed and food systems. This contrasts with mandating nutrient content standards for feeds, which is an antiquated focal point of the current regulations.
While work was underway on the new regulations, progress continued in other important areas of policy. One of the most significant successes was the approval of select gut modifying ingredients as feeds. This change has been instrumental in bringing new and innovative products to the marketplace to support producers in reducing the use of antimicrobials and improving the environmental sustainability of animal food products.
Looking ahead, we are optimistic that continued collaboration with our regulators will further reduce unnecessary regulatory burden and support a healthy business environment for all players within the Canadian feed space.
FOSTERING RESILIENCY IN TIMES OF CRISIS
From floods, fires and droughts to railway strikes, labour shortages and Covid-19, the Canadian feed industry has faced considerable challenges in recent years. Through this turmoil, the industry became stronger through the development of new contingency plans and vital collaborations.
Despite the successes, these experiences revealed the fragility of our supply chain. A more robust supply chain will be crucial in ensuring that our industry can continue to adequately feed Canadian livestock, as well as supply our international customers, even in times of crisis. Over the coming years, ANAC will be partnering with like minded organizations to support initiatives that strengthen our labour force and ensure the feed industry is recognized as an essential service during crises.
RAISING THE FEED SAFETY BAR
The Canadian feed industry has been a longstanding global leader in feed safety. Being the first to develop a feed safety program in North America and one of the first in the world, our industry puts in the work to make Canadian feed products some of the safest and highest quality available on the global market.
Our commitment to feed safety was reaffirmed when we launched the updated version of FeedAssure®, our feed safety program, with more rigorous standards. The updates address emerging threats to feed safety such as feed defense and feed fraud, as well as expand on foundational elements like biosecurity, supplier approval and crisis management.
With emerging diseases such as Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) threatening domestic livestock and the fear of foreign animal disease such as African Swine Fever (ASF) entering Canada, it is critical that feed mills take precautionary steps to keep feeds safe and disease-free. Through voluntary participation in the FeedAssure® program, Canadian feed and ingredient suppliers are taking the necessary steps to deliver the safest feed possible to livestock producers.
ANAC is committed to continuous improvement through regular reviews of the program, supporting implementation of up-to-date feed safety best practices and proactively addressing new threats to the food value chain.
PARTNERING FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Environmental, social and economic sustainability is top of mind for players throughout the animal protein value chain. Environmental impacts from animal food products are increasingly highlighted by consumers and governments globally as an opportunity for improvement within our sector. While great strides have already been made, the Canadian feed industry is motivated to continue progress in this space and do our part to preserve the social license of high-quality animal proteins for human consumption.
To achieve this goal, working in partnership with our protein producing colleagues is imperative. Through nutritional innovations, we can offer producers new tools to reduce the environmental footprint of their products. Our lobbying efforts over the past year have been successful in shaping a regulatory environment that allows us to bring these innovations to the Canadian market. In January 2024, we saw the first feed additive reducing methane emissions in cattle approved in Canada. This groundbreaking approval was the result of collaboration between industry and government.
To reliably track our progress on sustainability outcomes over time, we must begin with a clear understanding of our performance today. To this end, ANAC joined a coalition of private-public partners representing the entire food value chain from production to retail with the collective goal of credibly measuring and presenting an integrated picture of sustainability for Canada’s agri-food sector. With the solid benchmark generated through this initiative, Canada is well positioned to measure our improvements going forward.
We look forward to continuing to build synergistic relationships and supporting livestock producers in a challenging but exciting world. As the Executive Director of ANAC, I am honoured to be able to help play a small part in our members’ success in helping feed the world.
