The European Feed Manufacturers' Federation, or FEFAC, has opened registration for its 70th anniversary Public Annual Meeting. The meeting is set for April 27-28, 2027, in Luxembourg, at the same time as a meeting of the EU's Agriculture and Fisheries Council.
The event will take place at the European Convention Center Luxembourg in the city's Kirchberg district. Its theme is "European Livestock Strategy and EU Protein Action Plan: From Vision to Implementation." Christophe Hansen, the European commissioner for agriculture and food, is scheduled to give the opening keynote on the plan for putting both strategies into practice.
"Our members are strongly committed to delivering the practical tools to modernise livestock farmers' operations, which requires an enabling, coherent EU policy framework and close cooperation across the agri-food chain," said FEFAC President Nicolas Coudry-Mesny.
The first session pairs Hansen with a roundtable of national farm ministers. They include Martine Hansen of Luxembourg, Martin Heydon of Ireland, Sari Essayah of Finland and Szabolcs Bóna of Hungary. Lennart Nilsson, president of the farm cooperative group Cogeca, and Herbert Dorfmann, a member of the European Parliament, will then discuss the legal and financial framework for modernizing livestock and feed production.
Trade gets its own session. Arnaud Petit, executive director of the International Grains Council, and Roberto Betancourt, president of the Brazilian feed industry group Sindirações, will open a discussion of how recent EU trade deals are affecting EU and global feed trade. Those deals include the Mercosur agreement and the free trade area with Ukraine. The panel includes:
- Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council
- Alejandra Castillo, president of the North American Export Grain Association
- Nikolay Gorbachov, president of the Ukrainian Grain Association
The final session, on April 28, centers on the EU Protein Action Plan's goal of sourcing 35% of high-protein feed ingredients from inside the EU by 2035. Christophe Beaunoir, president of Fediol, the EU vegetable oil and protein meal industry association, will discuss rapeseed meal as the bloc's largest homegrown source of high-protein meal.
Later panels cover:
- alternative proteins and amino acids
- rendered co-products
- new genomic techniques for oilseed and protein crops
Speakers on those panels come from Euroseeds, Bayer, Evonik and the European Fat Processors and Renderers Association.
That 35% goal matters to exporters. Europe relies on imported soybean meal, so any shift toward homegrown rapeseed meal and other proteins would affect demand for U.S. and South American supplies.
