Oftentimes, people think most of the information coming out of Washington, D.C., is not positive or productive for animal agriculture. The headlines seem to discuss more regulations coming down the pike or uncertainty with the upcoming presidential election.
It is not all bad news, though. There are some small steps of progress being made that will help farmers with productivity, the environment, and even food safety — via the feed they provide their animals.
Pushing for change
The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) has been advocating for the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) to change the way it regulates certain animal feed ingredients. After years of waiting, the CVM recently rescinded a 1998 policy that regulated feed ingredients as animal drugs if the ingredients made animal production or environmental claims. That policy effectively stopped innovation in the feed industry, given that no feed company could traverse the lengthy animal drug approval process, nor should they have had to since these ingredients work solely within the digestive tract of the animal.
In recent years, the CVM and Congress started to see how far behind the U.S. feed industry and animal agriculture is to the rest of the world, where many countries already modernized their regulatory systems to keep pace with the evolving science around animal nutrition. While the wheels of government do not always turn quickly, they do turn, and our industry must be ready when they start rolling to take advantage of them.
A meeting of the minds
Recently, the University of California, Davis, held its State of the Science Summit, where over 250 experts came together to discuss the research, applicability, and regulatory challenges in enteric emissions reduction strategies in animal agriculture. I joined others in speaking about the important role feeding strategies can play in the reduction of enteric emissions in ruminants.
Summit attendees from the United States remained reluctant to get their hopes up since, as of mid-May, there were no approved feed ingredients for this intended use available in the market. To their surprise, just a few days following the summit’s end, the CVM announced its intention to utilize enforcement discretion for certain animal drug requirements for Bovaer. Bovaer is a feed ingredient, approved in 58 other countries, that can now be marketed in the United States for the reduction of enteric methane in lactating dairy cows.
This action was made possible because the CVM rescinded its restrictive policy memo. That meant the product did not have to undergo many more years past the two it already had undergone through the decade-long animal drug approval process.
There’s more to do
The hard work of modernizing U.S. feed regulations is not done, though. Animal food innovators still need a clear regulatory path for other animal foods that can reduce enteric methane emissions, enhance animal production, and improve food safety. While the CVM made progress by changing its policy, legislation is needed to clearly provide the agency with a pathway to approve these products so that it does not live in an “enforcement discretion” gray area forever.
The feed industry needs to know, and so do livestock producers, that these novel feed ingredients are safe and achieve their intended effects. Animal food companies need assurance, before investing in the U.S. regulatory system, that their research and development will pay off. Otherwise, they will not invest in the American marketplace.
This is why the AFIA, along with nearly 200 animal health and climate-related organizations, a growing number of bipartisan members of Congress, and several administration officials, have been calling for passage of the Innovative Feed Enhancement and Economic Development (Innovative FEED) Act (H.R. 6687/S. 1842), which will give certainty to animal feed innovators, producers, and consumers.
Put simply, the Innovative FEED Act will amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to establish a new category of animal feed additives that do not impact animal nutrition. Rather, they act in the animal’s gut to provide health or production benefits, reduce emissions, or address human food safety concerns. These animal feed ingredients would be subject to the FDA’s rigorous Food Additive Petition process before gaining market approval, ensuring safety for the animals that consume them and the people who eat the resulting foods.
Another aspect the AFIA is working on is getting these types of innovative feed products, once FDA-approved, into the hands of producers by supporting the Enteric Methane Innovation Tools for Lower Emissions and Sustainable Stock (EMIT LESS) Act (S. 4056). The EMIT LESS Act will incentivize farmers and ranchers to use them to start reducing U.S. enteric methane emissions sooner. In particular, the bill will expand the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research capabilities for products (such as feed additives) and feeding practices that reduce environmental emissions and create voluntary incentives through conservation programs to speed up farmers’ and ranchers’ use of those products.
In agriculture, we recognize that even the greatest invention can fail if it does not fit into the production system, which slows adoption. We will need farmer incentive programs and carbon credit capture mechanisms to reap the full benefits of these next-generation feed technologies.
It has taken many years to get the wheels of Washington, D.C., to turn toward progress on regulatory modernization for the animal food industry. At the AFIA, we are excited and look forward to bringing more ingredients to the animal agriculture community to improve productivity, provide environmental benefits, and tackle food safety challenges.
