FEFAC, the European Compound Feed Manufacturers’ Federation, said Dec. 8 that it fully supports the call from Copa-Cogeca for a strong, competitive, market-oriented Common Agricultural Policy for the European Union.

The feed industry association said the policy should have common and simple rules across the European Union and follow the European Commission publication on The Future of Food & Farming Communication, outlining the challenges and opportunities of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post 2020.

FEFAC said it welcomes in principle the EU Commission’s intention to take a pragmatic approach and apply more flexibility, taking into account the diversity of EU agriculture. At the same time the organization said its members, share concerns about potentially unintended consequences which could give rise to market distortions and jeopardize the level playing field between EU Member States.

FEFAC said in its view that the European Commission needs to strengthen its role as guardian of the Treaty, thus preventing a further widening of the scope for national derogations and exemptions which could undermine the CAP. FEFAC noted its preliminary position on the CAP post 2020, which called for a rebalanced CAP, strengthening the economic viability of the EU livestock sector.

FEFAC said it welcomes the overall orientation in the CAP Communication to favor more sustainable and environmentally friendly farming methods in the future CAP, which will enable farmers to meet the commitments to the Sustainable Developments Goals and the COP21 climate change objectives. To this end, FEFAC called for more publicly funded research, including animal nutrition science projects, to further reduce livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions while identifying effective mitigation strategies.

The European feed industry has heavily invested in a common methodology at the EU and global level (PEFCR for feed & GFLI Feed LCA database project) to measure the environmental performance of feed production and is ready to provide assistance to livestock farmers to reduce their environmental footprint while improving animal performance and resource efficiency. In addition, FEFAC said it is committed to support the European Commission in the development of the new European Protein Plan, expected by the end of 2018. FEFAC recommends to EU policymakers to take a fully comprehensive approach that covers the strategic need to maintain market access to highly concentrated protein sources essential to promote sustainable feeding strategies in Europe.

FEFAC represents 24 national associations in 23 EU Member States as well as associations in Switzerland, Turkey, Serbia, Russia and Norway with observer/associate member status. The European compound feed industry employs more than 100,000 people on approximately 3,500 production sites. Farm animals in the EU 28 consume an estimated 480 million metric tons of feed a year, of which about 30% are produced by the compound feed manufacturers. Turnover of the European compound feed industry is estimated at €50 billion.