BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — The European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC) announced on Dec. 20 that provisional data indicates that its members used between 9 and 10 million tonnes of “responsible soy” in 2018, meeting the criteria of the FEFAC Soy Sourcing Guidelines.

The federation noted that this is a significant increase from 2017 when 6 million to 7 million tonnes were used.

Responsible soy is soy provided through supplier and member schemes and programs that FEFAC and its members consider to be in compliance with the 59 criteria of the FEFAC Guidelines, covering good agricultural practice, and environmental and social requirements.

As of December 2019, 19 schemes have passed the benchmarking process against the Soy Sourcing Guidelines, facilitated by ITC.

“I am pleased with the continued positive trend that the European feed sector and its supply chain partners have been able to display as regards the industry use of responsible soy,” said Nick Major, president of FEFAC. “I am confident that we will make further progress on the mainstream market transition of responsible soy use from both imported and home-grown origin. In that regard, I also welcome the growing signatory list of over 250 feed companies to the Responsible Soy Declaration.”

FEFAC considers the updated monitoring result on responsible soy usage as an important contribution to the E.U. debate on the protection of world forests, as part of the Green Deal action plan of the European Commission.

FEFAC will soon conduct a review of its Soy Sourcing Guidelines to provide a meaningful contribution to current discussions to improve the market transparency on “deforestation-free” soy products used by the European feed industry.