Nevedi – The Netherlands Feed Industry Association
The European livestock and feed industry has had to deal with many challenges in recent years: The Covid-19 pandemic, animal diseases such as ASF and avian influenza, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, increasing legal legislations around sustainability etc.
Our industry has been severely affected by all these processes. In particular, I believe that the Covid-19 pandemic was a wake-up call. Covid taught us how to deal with epidemic diseases, how to prevent them, antibiotic resistance and the link between the use of products in animal keeping and such diseases.
The wars in Ukraine and Israel have also had serious international consequences. In particular, becoming less dependent on others has been one of the main topics that came to the forefront during this period and has been on the agenda of Europe and many other countries around the world. Today, all continents are talking about their own food and feed security.
The European Commission talks about food security, self-sufficiency and getting less dependent. How are you going to do that? What is self-sufficient? And how can we be self-sufficient?
For example, in the Netherlands, more than 50% of the raw materials we use in feed production are co-products, which we buy from food companies. There are also foodstuffs that farmers produce on their own farms, such as maize and grass, but these are more limited. About 20% of the rest of the raw materials are imported, 80% of which come from Europe. Soybean meal, which makes up a small amount of the raw materials used, is imported from North and South America. In the end, in the Netherlands, our dependence on imports is dependent on Europe. So, for us, being self-sufficient means being self-sufficient on the European level.
CLIMATE CHANGE IS A VERY CLEAR REALITY
Even all these developments have not changed the idea that we need to work on climate change goals. Climate change is a very clear reality and now, everyone knows it.
Across Europe, there are serious efforts and strict legal regulations to reduce carbon emissions. The new Dutch Minister of Agriculture, who is open to supporting innovation, is focused on the fact that we have to deal with food security as well as climate goals. As a country, we have to align with the European Commission, but we also have to take care of healthy, quality and payable food. I think the latter in particular is very important because people with lower incomes should also have access to healthy and good food.
As a feed industry, we are focusing on by-products that reduce methane emissions and use less energy, especially in ruminants. We think the feed ratio needs to be better than it is now and we are in favour of innovations that will enable this. As an industry, we are trying to increase our contribution to this process by selecting the right raw materials and feed ingredients that are well digestible and ensuring that feed is used efficiently. The fact that officials at the Ministry of Agriculture support this idea gives us hope that the feed sector can continue to contribute to climate goals.
But it is also unacceptable that the entire responsibility for this process, which imposes additional costs on farmers, is placed on the agriculture sector. Politicians have been saying for years that money is not everything. “We should take care of future generations, we have to look after the environment and nature,” they say. And they are right when, indeed, environment and nature are separate from farming. But in the opinion of the feed sector, and my personal opinion, farmers are a part of nature and the environment. So of course, farmers have to contribute to achieving goals in this area too. But it is not realistic to put all the burden on them. This could lead to the destruction of your agri-food complex.
WHO WILL PAY FOR THE COST OF NEW DEMANDS?
Another issue is the expectations for animal welfare. There are different ways of approaching this issue. First of all, anything we do in feed and everything we change has possibly a high-cost impact. So, the big question is: if we produce feed in the future with a higher cost, how is the farm going to pay for it? This is a big and interesting issue because we also talk about chain initiatives in the market. For example, if you want to buy the meat of animals that have been fed with regional raw materials or soy-free feed, or if you want to buy free-range chicken eggs, you have to be aware that this will have a higher climate impact. The more space you give to the chicken, the higher the climate impact. So how do we deal with that? When you have a higher cost, who is going to pay for it?
The only thing we can think of is if there is a demand from the market, someone has to pay for it and that’s the consumer.
The feed sector, farmers, the processing industry, retailers… In short, every partner in this production chain wants to make money because they are all enterprises. The farmer is often left with the bill for this whole process. The farmer has to deal with lower income and higher costs. This is a really big problem. And I think with all our efforts on feed, we have to find a solution to that. Because if you don’t have many healthy farms in Europe, you can’t say you have a healthy feed sector. And if you want a healthy feed sector or a healthy ‘agri-food complex’ in the Netherlands, you need a critical number of companies. And of course, these companies need a certain amount of money to run their business.
Fortunately, the new European Commission is no longer just focusing on climate change and environmental impact. It is also setting goals, naming them and giving instruments to achieve them. So that both markets and society can take time to find the solutions that are needed. I think this will be our new agenda for the coming period.
