Sustainability and climate neutrality are buzzwords of our time. The focus is often on animal husbandry and the call for meat renunciation and thus ultimately also the renunciation of animal husbandry. Is agricultural production without animal husbandry really sustainable and sensible?

Animal husbandry, and with it animal nutrition, are in a state of upheaval. The social and also the demands on the industry in puntco environmental and climate protection are increasing. Animal welfare is to be improved and emissions reduced. Science already has answers to some questions, but there is still work to be done in other fields.

Feed mills are full of technology that is constantly evolving. This is not only to improve efficiency and profitability, but also to meet the demands of animal nutrition. Only companies that keep their finger on the pulse of the times with their equipment and are open to innovations can meet the growing demands on feed production.

As in many other industries, the feed industry has recognised that sustainability is an essential direction for sustaining life on earth. Among other things, FEFAC as the European umbrella organisation of the feed industry has created a basis for measuring the ecological footprint of the feed industry with the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rule (PEFCR) Feed for Food-Producing Animals. More and more feed companies are referring to this in their sustainability guidelines.

For the technical equipment of a compound feed mill, it is important to take advantage of advances in feed processing. Thus, replacement investments should not only pursue pure replacement but also provide for progress - especially in terms of animal welfare and animal health, as shown in this issue by the example of a crushing roller mill with individual roller drive.

The conditions in the compound feed mill, transport vesel and feed trough can be very stressful for additives. Temperature, pressure, humidity, vibration and other influences are involved when an additive does not have the effect it should have. This has to be taken into account in development and formulation if the compound feed producer and the livestock farmer are to be satisfied with a product and the return on investment makes it economical to use.

Once again, a year tends to come to an end. A special year of pandemic, event cancellations, accelerated changes in nutritional behaviour, the appearance of ASF in Germany and a decline in European compound feed production. For the coming year, the main hope lies in the end of the pandemic and its negative consequences but also in an improved environment for the feed industry. But some trends are likely to remain irreversible.

Research and development is driven by many small and big ideas. Not holding on to what has been achieved, but searching for and going new ways brings marketable innovations. The results from the R+D departments presented in this issue focus on healthy animals with high performance. A lot of hard work is put into the conservation of resources by adapting them to the conditions in the digestive tract, which often relieves the strain on the metabolism and reduces the burden of nutrition.