ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, U.S. —The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA),  the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC) and European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC) met to launch the  Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) database project, as a follow-up to the recently completed Livestock Environmental Assessment Partnership (LEAP) project, the first FAO joint project with industry.
 
The LEAP project provided a methodology on accessing the environmental impact of livestock and poultry production and reported that globally animal production accounts for less than 14% of greenhouse gas emissions. Canada, the U.S., and the E.U. have agreed to use this methodology to create a model and regional ingredient databases that can be used by industry to accurately measure the GHG emissions from poultry and livestock production. The objective is that this model and database will be the global standard for assessing the impact and improvement of poultry and livestock production, on a regional basis.
 
"Using the LEAP methodology to create a science-based model for the U.S. and Canada will not only help us today, but will help the industry measure its improvements over time and provide valuable, accurate information for policy makers," said Joel G. Newman, AFIA president and chief executive officer (CEO) and co-chair of the Canada-U.S. group.
 
Graham Cooper, ANAC executive director and co-chair of the Canada-U.S. group said, "The steering group is glad to be working with Dr. Frank Mitloehner with the University of California Davis again on GFLI, as he participated in the LEAP project, and served as chair of the first year of the project."
 
Mitloehner and his team will provide technical expertise in the development of the ingredient database. The steering committee plans to complete the database by the end of 2017.

“As feed supply chains have international dimensions, it’s great to see synergies take place between global and regional activities,” said Nick Major, the FEFAC chairman of the PEF Pilot Project on Feed. “The PEF Pilot Project on feed we are working on in Europe can take advantage of the work on this global LCA database that is already being developed.”

The E.U. is simultaneously working on its own regional feed ingredient database. The Chinese feed industry and government are also considering establishing a feed ingredient database project team in the near future.
 
Companies involved in the Canada-U.S. GFLI steering committee include ADM Alliance Nutrition, Alltech, Inc., Cargill Animal Nutrition, CHS Inc., Diamond V, Elanco Animal Health, Hi-Pro Feeds, Purina Animal Nutrition, Mosaic Feed Ingredients, Novus International, Inc., Potashcorp and United Soybean Board.