The Safe Animal Feed Education (SAFE) Program conducted a survey through SAFE and FEED listserv subscribers, all licensees via the ExtraView Database listserv as well as via the Run of the Mill Blog to assist the program with identifying areas to focus its outreach and educational resources in 2024. This survey was successful in reaching various sectors of the feed industry. Out of 51 responses, the majority (51%) of participants identified themselves as a livestock feed manufacturer, 23% were human food processing facilities selling by-products to animal feed, 14% were brokers/re-sellers, and the rest included consumers, retailers, and nutritionists (Table 1).
The primary question of the survey was:
“I and/or employees at my company would benefit from education in which of the following areas?” Select all that apply.
Over 60% of participants selected “knowledge of feed safety hazards that are known and reasonably foreseeable” and 45% of participants selected “commercial feed label requirements”. Participants also selected “ingredients safe and approved for feed” (37%), “knowledge of livestock nutrition” (37%), “how to report tonnage” (37%), “mixer efficiency, sequencing and flushing” (29%), “food safety plan and prerequisite programs” (29%), and “diversion of by-products to livestock feed” (27%) (Figure 1).
Participants were also asked to choose the value of education in the areas selected. The responses demonstrate SAFE plays an important role in helping industry voluntarily gain compliance with regulations and improve operations and processes to ensure the safe manufacture of commercial feed (Figure 2). Responses indicate the preferred method of resources is a virtual format (Figure 3), with 80% of participants selecting webinar and about half of participants selecting video and document.
Outcomes
SAFE’s main take-away from this survey was a resounding lack of visibility and use of currently available educational resources. In the last two years, SAFE has provided new and updated guidance in the form of documents, checklists, examples, in-depth guidance, videos, and webpages related to the highest-ranking topics from this survey, including:
- Knowledge of Feed Safety Hazards
- Commercial Feed Label Requirements
- Ingredients Safe and Approved for Feed
- Feed and Feed Ingredients Webpage
- How to Report Tonnage
- Mixer Efficiency, Sequencing, Flushing
- Food Safety Plan and Prerequisite Programs
- Individual Food Safety Plan Consultations
- Diversion of By-Products
To improve visibility of resources, SAFE will be making the following efforts in 2024:
- Collaborating with the California Grain and Feed Association (CGFA) to provide regular articles and updates in CGFA’s weekly newsletter, “The Conveyor.”.
- Continue outreach efforts to encourage industry to subscribe to the Commercial Feed Regulatory Program (CFRP) and SAFE email listserv to receive the Quarterly Feed Update Newsletter and all updates.
- Begin to offer webinars intended to help industry navigate the available resources and ask questions.
From this survey, SAFE also recognized a continued need for outreach and education regarding feed safety, and an increased interest in knowledge of livestock nutrition. SAFE will be developing expanded educational resources on known and reasonably foreseeable hazards in livestock feed, including toxicity and deficiency levels and other nutrition related feed safety concerns.