Sustainable agriculture to headline summit in response to poll

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A recent poll found that the millennial generation is willing to pay more for products from sustainability-focused companies.
An industry panel will seek to define sustainability as it relates to agriculture at the Animal Agriculture Alliance's 13th annual Stakeholders Summit in response to a poll commissioned by the Clinton Global Initiative and Microsoft.
According to the poll, which surveyed the millennial generation, the demographic is more focused on the environment than their parents' generation, 76 percent to 24 percent. More than two-thirds of respondents said that they are willing to pay more for products from sustainability-focused companies. Yet, according to the Animal Agriculture Alliance, millennials struggle to concretely define sustainability and identify what role "sustainable products" play in their purchasing decisions.
Summit panelists will discuss these complex issues surrounding environmental sustainability as well as marketing to this dynamic demographic at the summit themed "Cracking the Millennial Code" held May 8-9, 2014, in Crystal City, Va. Jason Clay, World Wildlife Fund, Aidan Connoly, Alltech, Claudia Garcia, Elanco, and Mitch Abrahamsen, Cobb-Vantress, will participate on the panel and also present what the term means to each of their organizations and corporations.
"Sustainability isn't a destination, it's a journey," said Animal Agriculture Alliance president and CEO Kay Johnson Smith. "Our panelists recognize the quest for more sustainable agriculture doesn't just include better environmental stewardship, but also ensuring that we can continue to feed a growing population using fewer resources, while maintaining economic viability and top-notch animal care. I'm excited for our distinguished panelists to discuss industry advancements and opportunities for the future."

Wayne Farms names 'Environmental Farm of the Year'

Robin and James Spears were honored by Wayne Farms for "Environmental Farm of the Year."

Wayne Farms, a vertically integrated U.S. poultry producer, recently recognized R&J Spears Farm as "Environmental Farm of the Year."
The R & J Spears Farm, owned by Robin and James Spears, has been producing birds for Wayne Farms since March 29, 2011. They operate a four-house broiler farm with 118,800 square feet. The R & J Spears Farm includes a commercial hay business and a pine plantation, in cooperation with the local Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Irish pig farmers embracing sustainable agriculture

To promote sustainable agriculture in Europe, Truly Irish Country Foods established a €1.68 million EU funded group, Thrive Rite. Pig producers are enduring enormous challenges in the form of rising feed costs. Legislation also has increased with tighter restrictions on reduced antibiotic use. Thrive Rite hopes to find the solution.
Key Members include: Michael McAuliffe, CEO, Truly Irish Country Foods Ltd, Prof. John O’Doherty, University College Dublin, John T. O’Sullivan, BioAtlantis Ltd, John McKillen, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Belfast, Clasado Ingredients Ltd, Malta, Drobex-Agro, Poland and University of Technology and life Sciences, Bydgoszcz, Poland will together tackle the fundamental problems facing agriculture in the EU today.
It is expected that the project will yield the following results in two years:
• Increased productivity
• Reduced level of pathogenic bacteria
• Increased daily live weight gain
• Improved F.C.E
• Improved health status in the form of a protective shield
• Improved digestive system so that the pig is overall healthier and can strive on different diets
• More focus on dietary requirements of the pig rather than what we presume it to be.
The unique feature of these benefits is that they are derived from natural bioactives. It will make producers rethink how they feed their pigs which will be different to normal current pig production.
This research and trials will be carried out in conjunction with University College Dublin. 

Defining, achieving sustainability in the livestock industry

The subject of sustainability cropped up again and again at the Biomin World Nutrition Forum. Sustainability – successfully satisfying the human need for food, feed and fiber – can be approached in a number of ways.
Frank Mitloehner of the University of California Davis, looked at the impact of livestock production on climate change.
He noted that, in California, people are really thinking about the impact of their food choices on climate change, and that everyone wants to know their carbon footprint. With this in mind, it is important for both consumers and producers to fully understand what their carbon footprint actually is. With consumers able to pick and choose from whom they buy, ignorance on the production side is ever less an option.
Mitloehner looked at emissions from various countries, comparing footprints, and pointing out the huge diversity in genetics and management practices from country to country that can lead to this disparity. However, in addition to varying practices, he also raised the need for a standard way of measuring carbon footprints, to ensure that like is compared to like.
The harmonization of methodologies has started, and the FAO has begun a benchmarking initiative.
While it may seem like commonsense once explained, many in the general public fail to understand how modern and intensive farming methods can reduce carbon footprints. The more that a single animal produces, the smaller the carbon footprint attributable to the amount of meat produced, and the opposite is true for animals with low productivity. Improved management of health, genetics, and fertility will lead to comparatively lower numbers of animals to feed to growing populations.
“The long shadow of livestock in not inevitable, but the result of long-standing neglect,” he said, adding that the global mitigation potential of technical and structural options is very large.
David J. Caldwell, this year’s winner of the Biomin Brain Award, detailed his work on how changes in meat production can reduce the use of antimicrobials. His talk followed two strands – the improvement of existing practices and the development of new technologies.
He cited the need to develop alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters along with the increasing use of vaccination in the US to tackle coccidiosis in poultry. Between 2000 and 2011, the percentage of birds vaccinated in the country against coccidiosis rose from 2.5 percent to 30 percent.

Conflict and contradiction?
Yet how can a company that flies participants from 75 countries to a single location reconcile this with offering a platform to those arguing that the livestock industry must be more sustainable?
There is no hypocrisy here. The company’s Andreas Kern explained that Biomin conducted a life cycle analysis for the entire event, and all emissions produced by the participants’ travel, consumption of electricity and food, and local transportation, were included.
To offset these CO2 emissions by a sustainable means, a 200 kVp photovoltaic plant will be installed at its new factory close to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. On top of this, all office and laboratory buildings in the new factory will receive an additional layer of insulation and a “green roof” system to reduce the energy needed to run the air conditioning system, helping the environment and reducing demand from the country’s electricity grid. 

Global pig industry unites to reduce carbon footprint

Pig industry organizations from around the world are in talks about starting a coordinated international campaign to keep the environmental impact of pork production as low as possible.
Industry leaders met recently in Washington, D.C., and will convene again at the World Pork Conference, announced by the International Meat Secretariat, which takes place Oct. 6 and 7 in Bonn, Germany.
IMS Pork Committee Deputy Chairman Mick Sloyan, from the British Pig Executive, told Pig International that the Washington meeting revealed that they have developed so-called roadmaps on how to reduce the carbon footprint of pig meat. The pig organizations are currently coordinating messages on careful environmental stewardship and are looking at proposals to start a routine exchange of technical information obtained from research from individual countries.
Watch Pig International Editor Roger Abbott and Sloyan discuss monitoring the global impact of pig production.

Treat environmental regulators as stakeholders, expert advises

While environmental management compliance is costly, the investment will pay off – but only if done right, James T. Banks, Hogan & Hartson, told listeners at the Animal Agriculture Environmental Sustainability Summit.
The former EPA regulator, now environmental law attorney, ticked off three reasons why companies must put the necessary culture, resources and systems in place: stewardship, reputation and liability.
“Stakeholders’ views of the company matter a lot,” Banks said. “And environmental compliance can have a lot to do with how a company is perceived by investors, by customers, by communities in which you work and in turn by the employees who work for the company because they live in those communities.”

Regulators are stakeholders, too
Banks advised companies to not forget that regulators are stakeholders along with customers and investors. “Protecting your company’s reputation and image and building a relationship with regulators is critically important,” Banks said.
“Regulators are among your most important stakeholders,” he said. “There are plenty of examples where regulators get the idea that a company doesn’t care about compliance and set out to make an example of a company.”

Self-disclosure
Banks also discussed “self disclosure,” a more recent innovation in the world of enforcement and compliance. EPA has disclosure policy under which companies can self-report non-compliance and get penalty mitigation.
“I have represented dozens and dozens of companies taking them in for self-disclosures and getting penalties reduced from seven to six figures or six to five, and in many cases getting potential fines of $100,000 or $200,000 waived altogether.
“The key to being able to use that type of a tool is self-discovery of the violation and self-reporting. Self discovery of a violation occurs only in those companies that manage compliance effectively and are in a position to know when non-compliance has occurred,” he said.
Banks said doing environmental compliance right requires a systematic to environmental compliance management.

Britain reevaluates food production needs

The minister responsible for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs — equivalent to USDA — indicated Britain, which imported 37% of food consumed during 2008, must produce more while using less water, energy and fertilizers.
Sharp rises in commodity prices last year served as a reminder of the vulnerability of the nation. Britain will have to compete with other industrialized countries in the EU for its share of global food production, which will have to satisfy the needs of a population of 9 billion by 2050, according to FAO estimates.
It is considered significant that for many years green principles and welfare have dominated the UK egg industry which has contracted in size, resulting in a reliance on imports.
Food security is becoming a political issue since the Conservative Party in opposition has accused the government of failing to promote sound agricultural policy in favor of imports.
The current UK situation brings the following issues to light: the need to recognize and support the contribution of intensive animal agriculture, to adopt new technology including GMO crop production and to balance the demands of environmental and welfare activists against the realities of consumer needs.

SAI Platform adds new members

SAI Platform (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative), an organization which supports the development of sustainable agriculture, accepted three new companies as members.
Novus International, provides scientific animal health solutions,
General Mills, the world's sixth-largest food company, and
Cayuga Marketing LLC, comprising 22 farm businesses, markets milk and became involved with other aspects of dairy production.
The new members will be part of SAI Platforms' groups on arable crops, coffee, dairy, fruit, water and agriculture.
SAI Platform is dedicated to supporting agricultural practices and agricultural production systems that preserve the future availability of current resources and enhance their efficiency.