Roberto Betancourt (Sindiracoes President); Julio Neves (Feedlatina President); Mario Sergo Cutait (IFIF President); Alexander Doring (FEFAC Executive Secretary), Ariovaldo Zani (CEO Sindirações); Ruud Tijssens (FEFAC President)
At their first bilateral meeting in Sao Paulo on 21 August 2014, Mrs. Julio Neves, President of Feed Latina and Ruud Tijssens, FEFAC President, stressed the importance of closer cooperation on feed safety, regulatory coherence and sustainable development of feed and livestock production systems to the benefit of their members and chain partners.
The meeting was facilitated and attended by Mario Cutait, IFIF Chairman, Robert Betancourt, President of Sindiraçoes (Brazilian feed industry association), Ariovaldo Zani, CEO Sindirações, both Feedlatina board members, and FEFAC Secretary General, Alexander Döring.
Julio Neves and Ruud Tijssens agreed that moving towards closer cooperation of the leading regional feed industry associations in the crucial areas of feed safety, regulatory cooperation and sustainable developments will generate direct synergies and benefits to its members and feed chain partners. This will give a chance to take advantage of the extensive mutual knowledge base and experience in feed safety management and project development, both at regional and global level.
They noted that “feed manufacturers in Europe and Latin America face the same challenges and market expectations when providing safe, affordable and sustainable feed products to their customers and the final consumer of livestock products. Improved cooperation between both organisations will increase the industry’s capacity to develop common effective solutions by facilitating knowledge transfer and sharing expertise”.
Julio Neves pointed to the proactive partnership between Latin American feed associations, which account for 130 million tonnes of annual feed production, who just started a WTO funded project cooperation to harmonise feed regulatory frameworks in Latin America. This project could also bring direct benefit to European feed companies seeking better market access in Latin America.
Ruud Tijssens highlighted the new FEFAC feed safety management process and the launch of the global Feed LCA database and calculation tool, jointly developed with AFIA, the American Feed Industry Association. Direct project cooperation with FeedLatina would strengthen the credibility and robustness of both projects, given the important position of the Latin American feed industry as exporter of key feed ingredients and livestock products.
About international organizations:
1. FEFAC, the European Compound Feed Manufacturers’ Federation, represents 24 national Associations in 23 EU Member States as well as Associations in Switzerland, Turkey, Croatia, Serbia, Russia and Norway with observer/associate member status. The European compound feed industry employs over 110,000 persons on app. 4,000 production sites often in rural areas, which offer few employment opportunities.
2. FEEDLATINA is the regional federation that representing several national feed industry federations and companies in Latin America and the Caribbean which account for roughly 137 million tonnes of compound feed annually.
3. SINDIRAÇÕES is the Brazilian Feed Industry Association, established in 1953 and currently the main representative of the suppliers of feedstuffs, premixtures, feed supplements, petfood and livestock feed manufacturers, which accounts for almost 90% of the Brazilian overall feed production. Sindirações is a founding member of FEEDLATINA and has board member representation in IFIF.
4. FEFAC and FEEDLATINA are founding members of IFIF, the International Feed Industry Federation. IFIF is made up of national and regional feed associations, feed related organizations, and corporate members from across the world. Its members represent over 80% of the global animal feed production (www.ifif.org).
Sao Paulo, 27 August 2014
