Labor is top of mind for many of our members and the industry, so we asked three animal food industry experts – all named Julie – for their input on the topic. Julie Zimny is the global human resources leader with Cargill Animal Nutrition; Julie Sexton is the senior vice president and chief human resource officer with Land O’Lakes, Inc. and Julie Coble is the human resources manager with Kent Nutrition. Here is final post of the three-part series.

It is very difficult for me to believe how quickly the past year has come and gone. It seems like only yesterday I was thanking Church & Dwight Company’s Scott Druker, previous AFIA Board chair and our first “virtual” one at that, for his leadership through some very challenging times. While some uncertainty remains in the global marketplace, significant progress has been made toward realizing our new post-pandemic normal. This has certainly been the case for the American Feed Industry Association.

This week, we welcomed recent college graduate Gracie Wagner to our communications team as this year’s summer intern. She has a background in animal sciences and a passion for learning about how the agriculture industry tells its story to those who aren’t familiar with it. I recently asked her a few questions so we can all get to know her a little bit better.

It’s uncommon for a class to be offered on literally almost everything you need to know about an industry. That’s what makes the animal food industry and the Feed Industry Institute (FII) so unique. FII is a great educational forum that provides deep-dive lectures on the basics on animal nutrition and the process for manufacturing feed/pet food and getting it to market. Creating a list of most interesting things I learned during FII was very hard because there is just so much to choose from! Alas, out of the nearly 30 sessions on every facet of the industry, here are five interesting things I learned while participating in the last FII.

Ukrainian wheat fields turned mine fields and farmers turned soldiers – the implications of these disruptions will be felt in global agriculture for years to come. Recent news coverage has been peppered with stories of Russia’s brutal attacks on Ukrainian citizens, including its efforts to destroy the infrastructure necessary to sustain the Ukrainian people and export agricultural commodities to the global marketplace. While these stories certainly pull at our heartstrings, and as an industry, we are working diligently to head off a looming food crisis, we are also concerned about what the long-term ramifications may be from this war. 

Biosecurity is often defined as procedures intended to protect humans or animals against disease or harmful biological agents. For the animal food industry, biosecurity manifests as putting in place plans or programs intended to prevent feed, people and vehicles from introducing and/or spreading pathogens to livestock and poultry.

This week, we were thrilled to host representatives from the European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC) to explore opportunities for cooperation between the United States and the European Union to not only enhance trade opportunities between the trading partners, but also to safeguard food security by strengthening the resiliency of feed and food value-chain partners.

Labor is top of mind for many of our members and the industry, so we asked three animal food industry experts – all named Julie – for their input on the topic. Julie Zimny is the global human resources leader with Cargill Animal Nutrition; Julie Sexton is the senior vice president and chief human resource officer with Land O’Lakes, Inc. and Julie Coble is the human resources manager with Kent Nutrition. Here is part 1 of 3 of the interview.