London (28.12.11)
– Speaking at a recent meeting of FEFAC, the European feed manufacturers
association, their president Patrick Vanden Avenne said that “we, in
Europe, develop the sustainable technologies that will help feed the world
in the future.”
Noting that in the past year “we had to face tremendous volatility of
raw material prices since last summer with the resulting need for a sharp
increase in working capital and difficulty in managing our margin and profitability,”
at the same time the livestock producers had the greatest difficulty in passing
on their higher production costs to the slaughterhouses and ultimately the
consumer. At the end of 2010 the dioxin crisis in Germany exacerbated the
concerns in the European pig sector especially.
Despite the crisis facing the industry, Vanden Avenne wasu pbeat. “Our
European feed and livestock sector showed its great resilience,” he
said and concluded that “it has remained overall and through the crises
a vibrant sector showing the strength to rebound and to innovate.” The
Fefac strategy is to continue promoting R&D, efficiency and sustainability.
“The EU is the feed laboratory of the world,” Vanden Avenne said.
He explained that because of the legal constraints and market developments
the feed sector quickly responds to change. “Most innovations are developed
in Europe.
“The development model for the European feed and livestock sector is
indeed about two things: technological innovation and sustainability. They
are the two sides of one coin, they are Siamese twins”.
“Increasing the use of biofuel co-products for monogastric animals will
also lead to a more sustainable use of indigenous proteins while a large effort
of R&D, and development of new production technologies and additives will
be needed to maximise the potential value of these biofuel co-products,”
Vanden Avenne said.Products such as DDGS (Distiller's Dried Grains with Solubles)
are in demand in Europe and companies would gladly import larger volumes,
especially for ruminant feeds, but current GMO-rules prohibit this. “The
hard-won concession from the EU Standing Committee on Biotechnology, [on allowing
traces of non-authorised, but EFSA risk-assessed GM events in feed supplies]
is an important step forward but insufficient to keep market access to vital
feed imports,” Vanden Avenne said.
The so-called ‘technical solution’ is only short term. It might
even be possible that the next crop of foreign maize cannot be imported into
the EU. “We must fear that we will lose access to Brazilian Maize and
US corngluten and DDGS due to the planting and harvesting of the Syngenta
MIR 162 for which EFSA has not even adopted an opinion yet,” Vanden
Avenne said.
While Mr. Vanden Avenne’s comments are, of course, welcome, one cannot
help worrying that the extreme reluctance with which some EU Member States
show in their willingness to accept agriocultural GM technology and its products
(believing, often on slender evidence, that such products would not be purchased
by their citizens) is not an encouraging omen for his claims that Europe is
much of a leader in in agricultursal innovation.
Source:
Fefac president: ‘Europe is the feed lab of the world’.
All About Feed (18.12.11) (http://www.allaboutfeed.net/background/fefac-president-europe-is-the-feed-lab-of-the-world-12570.html)
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