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On Sept. 28-29, the Institute for Feed Education and Research (IFEEDER) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) will be bringing together the full feed value chain for a Feed Systems Sustainability Summit. The goal is for us to bring a diverse group of participants from upstream and downstream entities together to hold conversations around four critical components of sustainable feed systems: circularity, innovation, regenerative agriculture and responsible sourcing.

In recent years, an increasing number of foods are being marketed and labeled as free of genetically modified (GM) ingredients. For milk, meat or eggs, this means the animals these foods come from are fed exclusively non-GM feed. You need to look no further than current headlines to see the attention given to rising food prices, the need to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other sustainability elements.  

Unfortunately, last week brought another misleading attack on the American agriculture community. The New York Times used its platform to dish out a one-sided opinion video that paints the entire food industry in a negative light. The  title alone, “Getting Paid to Kill Our Planet,” is disappointing, given it defies everything I know about those who work in this industry and have dedicated their lives to improving the world in which we live for current and future generations.

Attention to our own health and the health of our planet has given rise to an array of diet recommendations that have advice for optimizing both. Relative to the planet, advocates for reduced meat diets point to the environmental impacts attributed to animal production as a key issue, whereas advocates for meat as a good protein source point to the beneficial role that animal production plays in better soil health and conservation agriculture. Like many concepts, the truth is unclear, understanding the issues around diets and agriculture is complex and many options may be viable, depending on your goals.

Consumers today want to see that our food choices have a positive impact on our health, communities and the environment around us. We at the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) believe that eating meat is not only compatible with that goal, it is integral to achieving it - we cannot achieve the sustainable, healthy future people need without meat.

A circular economy seeks to design out waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use and regenerate natural systems. Waste reduction and food loss recovery via the utilization of coproducts and by-products has long been a component of the animal feed and pet food supply chain. As the animal food industry considers its role in climate neutrality and other sustainability outcomes, we must also advance our ability to measure and assess existing processes as well as new technologies.  

While the Sustainable Agriculture Summit was held as a hybrid event with carefully orchestrated live and virtual content, many attendees chose to make their way to Las Vegas to participate in person. Joined by AFIA’s President and CEO Constance Cullman, I was glad to be among them. For me, conferences have always been a place to learn something new, but perhaps more importantly, to have unplanned (or planned) encounters with friends, peers, new acquaintances and future collaborators. As we all likely experienced at least once in the last 18 months, even the best virtual event cannot replace the conference networking experience.  

The short answer to my question is: yes! In “Part 1 – Defining Sustainability” of the Institute for Feed Education and Research’s (IFEEDER) webinar series, Kim Stackhouse-Lawson, Ph.D., director of AgNext at Colorado State University, shared an important idea for agricultural sustainability efforts, which is that sustainability is driven by both science and emotion. The recent Journal of Dairy Science article “Sustainability: Different Perspectives, Inherent Conflict” offers insights on consumer perspectives that further confound sustainability discussions.