Coen Smits, Global Sustainability Director at Trouw Nutrition, has given an inaugural lecture on sustainable animal nutrition at Wageningen University (WUR). In his presentation titled “Functional Feed for Sustainable Food”, Smits focused on the sustainability challenges facing the livestock sector.
Coen Smits, Global Sustainability Director at Nutreco’s livestock feed business line, Trouw Nutrition, gave his inaugural lecture at Wageningen University (WUR) as chair functional ingredients for sustainable animal nutrition. The presentation was entitled “Functional Feed for Sustainable Food.”
The lecture focused on the sustainability challenges facing the livestock industry, and how functional foods play a role in helping to produce more sustainable food and reduce the industry’s footprint. Smits explained how animal models are an important tool in this process, enabling to simulate the impact of changes in diet formulations, feed programs and other sustainability metrics on animal performance and a farm’s environmental footprint to help farmers make decisions that benefit their operations while also helping safeguard the planet.
“Livestock farming is facing many challenges to meet the current and future demands of sustainable food systems. Functional feed ingredients and feeds with benefits beyond their nutritional value are pivotal for sustainable farming and offer a wide range of possibilities to support animal health, reduce our impact on the climate and environment, and increase the circularity of the food system to limit competition between resources for feed or food,” said Coen Smits, Global Sustainability Director, Trouw Nutrition.
Wageningen University’s Functional ingredients for sustainable animal nutrition chair, established in October 2023 within the University’s Animal Nutrition group, is focused on education and development in the field of functional ingredients for sustainable animal nutrition, to explore how can reduce environmental footprints, increase the circular use of raw materials and support animal health.
