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When you think of federal agencies, what comes to mind? For me, I think of an intimidating, hulking building with slow, red-tape processes. I recently learned the reality is far from my wild imagination. Boiled down, federal agencies, and specifically the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in this story, is comprised of people, looking to give back to their country.

“If we don’t find overseas markets for our products, many farmers, many producers, go out of business.”

That was the message Daniel Whitley, administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, told the American Feed Industry Association’s Board leadership at a recent meeting. Our global policy team would strongly agree - the future of American agriculture, and the U.S. animal food industry, will be contingent on demand from beyond U.S. borders.

The American Feed Industry Association’s Mallory Gaines and Gary Huddleston recently brought staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service on a tour of the Kent Nutrition feed mill in Hagerstown, Md., as part of the AFIA’s Feed 101 Program.

Last week, the American Feed Industry Association’s Board of Directors participated in a “fireside chat” with senior Food and Drug Administration officials about challenges facing the regulatory agency and steps it’s taking to work with stakeholders to solve problems and prepare for future innovation.

The year was 1909. In a Chicago meeting room, owners of businesses growing an animal food industry discussed the increasing body of regulations governing the sector at both the federal and state levels. They understood the need to coordinate and stay informed of how these regulations were developing and formed an organization, which today is the American Feed Industry Association. Simultaneously, state agencies realized that together, they could develop standards, definitions and policies for the enforcement of feed laws that promoted uniformity. Thus, they created the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO).

The two organizations have been working together ever since.

Last year, I wrote about the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) Veterinary Services Form 16-4 (VS 16-4) and how if it was not updated, it could hinder exports for animal-based products in the event of a foreign animal disease outbreak on U.S. soil. We recently celebrated APHIS’s progress on updating this form, and are now turning our attention to going country-by-country, product-by-product to remove any diseases not relevant to those products.

It is a joint effort between regulators, industry and stakeholders to do our jobs and achieve the goal of providing safe and nutritious animal food products that help feed the world. It was refreshing to see this reflected by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) at its recent midyear meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

Are you aware that formaldehyde is an important feed additive for reducing virus risks, which the Environmental Protection Agency is currently trying to ban? First, let me explain why formaldehyde is in animal food and then I will discuss how the EPA’s current regulations may impact its safe use in animal food manufacturing in the future.