For two days this week, leading government regulators responsible for maintaining animal feed safety met with feed industry representatives in Atlanta, Ga., to discuss national feed legislation and its impact on the trade in feed and feed ingredients.
Seventy-five delegates from 21 countries registered for the two-day event at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta.
The International Feed Industry Federation event was hosted by the American Feed Industry Association, an IFIF member, in conjunction with the 2010 International Feed and Poultry Expo. IFIF organized the meeting jointly with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.
This, the third annual meeting of the international feed regulators, was the most interactive session yet, with sharing of information and exchanging of perspectives on principles of food and feed legislation, border inspection practices, managing undesirable substances and authorization systems for feedstuffs and ingredients.
“Presentations provided by both regulators and feed industry representatives provided background and examples of current practices, and challenged participants to consider ways to improve regulatory and risk-management systems,” said Dr. Dave Cieslak, IFIF chairman. Participants found the panels and open-forum discussions particularly useful and informative, he said.
Cieslak also said this most recent meeting has built significantly on the previous two and has become recognized as a unique venue that brings together the key players in feed safety from around the world and included the participation of the Codex Alimentarius secretariat.
IFIF recognized this forum as a great opportunity to develop understanding and synergy between industry and regulators, as well as across geographies. Improved understanding can lead to enhancements in the ways that feed and food safety is accomplished by the feed industry.
"Because so many people in the feed industry are in Atlanta for the Expo, it just makes sense to hold the IFIF meeting in conjunction with Expo during the same week," said Joel G. Newman, AFIA president and CEO.
“IFIF is committed to continuing and expanding this dialogue between regulators and our industry. We will be meeting again at the Global Feed & Food Congress in Cancun, Mexico, April 20-23, 2010, where some of these issues will be discussed in more detail. We welcome feed regulators who weren’t able to join us in Atlanta to contact IFIF for more information,” Cieslak said.
