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As someone working at a trade association, I often hear the question, 'What does the future hold for our industry?' Recently, much of this curiosity centers around sustainability. With the efforts the American Feed Industry Association and its members are putting into feed ingredient innovation and accurate product claims, I am hopeful that, one day, U.S. farmers and ranchers will be able to use these advancements to reduce their carbon impact AND benefit from a carbon market. 

What if you could foresee challenges and prepare for them? At the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), we are doing just that—anticipating opportunities for the feed and pet food industry and adapting swiftly to overcome obstacles to doing business in today’s global marketplace. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with American Feed Industry Association member Bryan Edwardson, president of Midwest Agri Commodities, on the nutritional benefits of using sugar beet coproducts in livestock feed. Midwest Agri, the sole owner of the Unbeetable Feeds brand, is leveraging beet pulp and other coproducts to provide high-fiber, low-protein feed options, selling 1.7 million tons of coproducts per year. 

We often look at the calendar and lament, “Where has the time gone?” At other times, it seems like so much time has passed because we can only marvel at how much has changed and how different the world is. In the case of the last five years, both feelings resonate with me.  

Summertime is always when I tell myself I am going to catch up on reading (work-related and personal) and a couple of weeks ago, my flights were cancelled. I could not do the work travel as planned, which left a lot of open time on my calendar. Put these two together and I spent a bit of time reading an article from earlier this year in the Journal of Dairy Science, “Fifty Years of Environmental Progress for United States Dairy Farms.”  

The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) is committed to advancing the animal feed industry through strategic policy priorities that enhance business operations, promote sustainability, ensure safety and bolster global competitiveness. These policy priorities are developed with input from our membership and Board leadership. 

The American Feed Industry Association recently joined the U.S. Sustainability Alliance (USSA), which is a group of associations across the farming, fisheries and forestry industries. USSA was founded in 2013 and advocates for sustainable U.S. food and agricultural production, while supporting producers through global promotion of sustainable products and sharing of knowledge for optimal use of natural resources.

Feed bags play a pivotal role in keeping animal feed fresh during storage and transportation. Most often, bulk bags made for the purposes of feed are typically manufactured with woven polypropylene, which has been proven to be extremely difficult to recycle. While individuals have found other personal use for the bags, there is no large-scale effort to recycle these bags across the industry, but that could soon change.