Feed & Additive Magazine Issue 3 April 2021

NEWS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE April 2021 25 T he Institute for Feed Ed- ucation and Research (IF- EEDER) released a new report that found that U.S. domestic livestock and pets consumed nearly 284 mil- lion tons of safe, high quality and nutritious food in 2019. The re- port also provides expert economic analysis on how the coronavirus pandemic may impact the indus- try’s growth over the next five years. Decision Innovation Solutions (DIS), the economic and analy- sis firm that performed the study, found that in 2019, the industry’s 5,836 manufacturing facilities pro- duced at least 283.8 million tons of animal food. The top three ani- mal food consumers included beef cattle at 64.5 million tons, hogs at 61.8 million tons and broiler chickens at 60.8 million tons. Using the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s November 2020 data, DIS established a baseline of the value and volume of feed for six major categories of livestock and poultry (i.e., broilers, layers, turkeys, hogs, dairy cows and beef cattle) and then provided three, forward-looking scenarios for the feed sector based on COVID- 19’s impacts. DIS estimated the baseline consumption at the be- ginning of 2020 at 252.6 mil- lion tons (excluding forages and roughages) with an estimated val- ue of $66.7 billion, under normal production circumstances without the effects of the pandemic. With COVID-19, the projected con- sumption rate fell 1.7% to rough- ly 248.4 million tons, a difference of 4.2 million tons less feed con- sumed worth $1.6 billion, leaving the industry with a total post- COVID-19 value of $47.5 billion. Dr. Anoosh Rakhshandeh joins Devenish's research team Devenish is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Anoosh Rakhshandeh to the company's research team as Swine Research Manager W ith research at the core of everything De- venish do, Dr. Rakhshandeh's background in animal nutrition will be a key resource in the fu- ture of swine trials. His primary responsibilities will be to plan, conduct and analyze trials that focus on challenges relevant to the swine industry. Dr. Anoosh Rakhshandeh earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in the field of poultry nutrition at Azad Uni- versity, and his Ph.D. in swine nutrition and immune function at the University of Guelph. Dr. Rakhshan- deh then served as a post-doctoral fellow at Iowa State University where he researched the impact of immunological stress on feed efficiency in swine. Fol- lowing his time at Iowa State University, he joined Texas Tech University as a fulltime faculty exploring the nutrient utilization and digestive physiology of animals, as influenced by various stressors. Dr. Rakhshandeh has published over 50 scientific abstracts, short papers, book chapters and peer-re- viewed articles in the field of animal nutrition and digestive physiology. IFEEDER finds demand for animal food strong, despite COVID-19