Sustainable soy: voluntary commitment by European feed manufacturers
Brussels / Bonn. Representatives of the pet food industry take responsibility and make their contribution. The Association of European Compound Feed Manufacturers (FEFAC) and the Deutsche Verband Tiernahrung e. V. (DVT) advocate the procurement of sustainably produced raw materials for use in animal feed. As part of their commitment, feed companies across Europe are now for the first time committed to taking concrete measures by 2025 in the procurement of soybeans and meal that are used in compound feed production in the EU. This applies to domestic and imported goods. Dr. Hermann-Josef Baaken, spokesman for the management of DVT: ?? Today around 60 percent of the soy meal used in compound feed in Germany is certified as sustainable. The demands for a further reduction in deforestation in cultivation countries will be taken up in the next stage of the revision of the FEFAC guidelines, which make a further important contribution to sustainability and ultimately also to climate protection. In addition, the feed industry can already point out that through the recognized sustainability certification, only those raw materials are purchased from areas that were not cleared after 2008. ?? With these rules, significant successes have already been achieved, even if this is not yet satisfactory worldwide ??, says Baaken. Even if the domestic forage plants already ensure a substantial proportion of the protein supply, 26 percent of the protein-containing raw materials would have to be imported, as the current EU protein balance shows.
At the same time, the DVT (Deutscher Verband Tiernahrung eV) calls on the governments in the affected countries to make voluntary commitments and to accelerate progress in climate protection through legal requirements.
Online platform for voluntary commitment
FEFAC and the International Trade Center (ITC) have developed an online platform that enables feed companies to publicly express their voluntary commitment to the procurement of sustainably produced soy. In doing so, they meet the criteria set out in the FEFAC soy procurement guidelines. FEFAC and DVT expressly encourage their member companies to follow the first signatories of the list (2) in order to support the common goal of a gradual market transformation towards sustainable soy products used in the European feed industry. Baaken: "We are optimistic that we will be able to further increase this proportion and thus also provide a satisfactory long-term response to the necessary reduction in global deforestation."
(1) Information on the protein balance of the European Commission? Commission publishes overview of EU feed supply?: https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/commission-publishes-overview-eu-feed-supply-2019-may-20_en
