Canada-U.S. feed industries launch regional feed LCA institute

Database project launched to help North American feed industry measure its improvements over time.

January 18, 2016

2 Min Read
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Last week, the American Feed Industry Assn. (AFIA) and the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC) met to launch the Canada-U.S. Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) database project, as a follow-up to the recently completed Livestock Environmental Assessment Partnership (LEAP) project — the first U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) joint project with industry.

The LEAP project provided a methodology on accessing the environmental impact of livestock and poultry production — through life-cycle analysis (LCA) — and reported that animal production accounts for less than 14% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. Canada, the U.S. and the European Union have agreed to use this methodology to create a model and regional ingredient databases that can be used by industry to accurately measure the GHG emissions from poultry and livestock production. The objective is that this model and database will be the global standard for assessing the impact and improvement of poultry and livestock production on a regional basis.

"Using the LEAP methodology to create a science-based model for the U.S. and Canada will not only help us today but will help the industry measure its improvements over time and provide valuable, accurate information for policy-makers," explained Joel G. Newman, AFIA president and chief executive officer and co-chair of the Canada-U.S. group.

Graham Cooper, ANAC executive director and co-chair of the Canada-U.S. group, added, "The steering group is glad to be working with Dr. Frank Mitloehner with the University of California-Davis again on GFLI, as he participated in the LEAP project and served as chair of the first year of the project."

Mitloehner and his team will provide technical expertise in the development of the ingredient database. The steering committee plans to complete the database by the end of 2017.

The EU is simultaneously working on its own regional feed ingredient database. Additionally, the feed industry and government in China are also considering establishing a feed ingredient database project team in the near future.

Companies involved in the Canada-U.S. GFLI steering committee include: ADM Alliance Nutrition, Alltech Inc., Cargill Animal Nutrition, CHS Inc., Diamond V, Elanco Animal Health, Hi-Pro Feeds, Purina Animal Nutrition, Mosaic Feed Ingredients, Novus International Inc., Potashcorp and United Soybean Board.

In addition, the GFLI management board held its first meeting following the Canada-U.S. meeting. This management board is responsible for the development of the model and the oversight of the regional database development and implementation. When completed, the GFLI model and database will be available for use by the global feed industry and other related groups for free. Involved in the overall management board includes, ANAC, AFIA, FEFAC (the European feed association), International Feed Industry Federation and FAO. The management board is chaired by Mike Goble with Diamond V, who was active with the LEAP project.

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