Joerg Seifert
Secretary General
FEFANA

Europe’s food security depends on a stable supply of specialty feed ingredients, yet high import dependency leaves the sector vulnerable to geopolitical risks and market shocks. FEFANA urges the EU to adopt a comprehensive strategy focused on strengthening EU competitiveness by supporting manufacturing, fostering innovation and reducing regulatory burdens. A resilient EU feed sector is prerequisite to protect consumers, farmers, and the broader food chain.

Food supply security in Europe is inseparable from feed supply security. Specialty feed ingredients are no longer optional; they are crucial and indispensable for animal nutrition and productivity, and for meeting sustainability and productivity targets. Without reliable access to these ingredients, the EU would face cascading effects across the food chain, impacting animals, farmers, food processors, and ultimately consumers. Increase of feed costs and decrease of livestock production would result in reduced availability and less affordability of meat, eggs, dairy and other products. Ensuring a stable and competitive production base for these ingredients within the EU is therefore a matter of strategic importance for food security and economic resilience.

FEFANA endorses the European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC) position on safeguarding EU feed to food security and recognises the shared responsibility to maintain a robust and competitive European feed sector. FEFAC has highlighted the vulnerability created by the EU’s high dependency on imported key feed additives. Global production of vitamins and amino acids used in animal feed is concentrated in a few countries which poses inherent vulnerability risks and exposes the EU to possible supply disruptions and unpredictable price volatility. These vulnerabilities undermine the EU’s sustainability objectives and its capacity to maintain stable food production.

To maintain and strengthen Europe as a manufacturing base for indispensable specialty feed ingredients, FEFANA urges to develop a comprehensive approach that addresses both immediate implementation challenges and long-term structural issues to create a healthier EU industrial ecosystem, close competitiveness gaps and ensure long term resilience. This could comprise the following elements:

• Sustain existing EU manufacturing capacity through targeted investment incentives, fostering innovation and providing energy cost relief. Targeted measures to reduce energy costs and support a gradual transition to low carbon energy sources are crucial for closing the competitiveness gap with other regions.
  
• Strengthen public–private partnership mechanisms to encourage innovation, promote economic growth and address societal challenges such as job creation and environmental impacts.
  
• Build a well-designed EU strategy to grow the bioeconomy sector in coherence with overall industrial strategy and support coordinated action to restore EU competitiveness.
  
• Early identification of geopolitical risks combined with robust EU contingency plans will strengthen resilience.
  
• Diversification of sourcing is essential to reduce dependency on single regions and to mitigate geopolitical risks. The EU should prioritise trade agreements with countries that have robust and reliable supply capacities and adhere to WTO rules of fair competition and supply of essential feed ingredients.
  
• Last but not least, complex and burdensome EU regulatory frameworks increase costs and slow down innovation. EU policies must go further to enhance productivity and increase competitiveness. Supporting initiatives that cut bureaucracy and simplify legislation as seen in recent Omnibus proposals could save the industry billions of euros in administrative costs while significantly improving competitiveness.
  

FEFANA advocates for urgent coordinated EU action to safeguard feed and food security, strengthen competitiveness and reduce strategic dependencies. Failure to act risks continued erosion of EU industrial capacity, greater vulnerability to supply disruptions and reduced availability and affordability of animal derived products such as meat, eggs and dairy for large parts of the EU population.