ROME, ITALY — The International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held their 14th annual meeting at FAO headquarters on Oct.12-13 to further strengthen their collaboration on critical issues to ensure safe, nutritious and sustainable feed and food.

Ren Wang, FAO assistant director-general for agriculture and consumer protection, welcomed delegates and highlighted the importance of private partnerships to support the FAO strategic goals to the IFIF delegates representing over 80% of global compound feed production.

The meeting was officially opened by Berhe Tekola, director of the FAO animal production & health division and Mario Sergio Cutait, IFIF chairman, who reiterated their commitment to this longstanding partnership and agreed to continue to strengthen their work together to tackle the challenges facing the feed and food chain.

“The FAO focus on five strategic objectives, emphasis on working in a goal-oriented manner, and the FAO strong efforts reaching out the private sector have made a tangible and positive difference in our already longstanding collaboration,” said Cutait.

“Together with the dedicated colleagues at the FAO, we have achieved very important milestones, including the Feed Manual of Good Practices for the Feed Industry, the International Feed Regulators Meetings (IFRM) and the Global Feed & Food (GFFC) Congress Series,” Cutait said. “We have to support both sustainable livestock production and intensive farming, innovation and technology and fair trade. Feed is part of the solution.” 

Joel Newman, IFIF chairman elect for 2016-17, highlighted that looking ahead IFIF is committed to continue to support the FAO initiatives on capacity development for feed safety, the LEAP partnership and the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock, as well joint efforts on feed and food safety at the Codex Alimentarius.
“IFIF looks forward to our upcoming 5th Global Feed & Food Congress, as well as the 9th International Feed Regulators Meeting, in Turkey in April 2016, both of which are stellar examples of FAO IFIF collaboration positively impacting the feed & food chain,” said Newman.

“FAO and IFIF have a long standing partnership and this meeting addressed a number of critical issues of common interest, such as the need for capacity development to ensure feed safety,” Daniela Battaglia, Livestock development officer at the animal production and health division of the FAO, said. “FAO is committed to work with the private sector and feed operators and believes that they can valuably contribute to make the livestock and food sectors more responsible and sustainable to achieve important goals such as public health, and animal health and welfare.”