Feed Radar Germany 2023- Environmental destruction and human rights violations linked to animal feed – are companies taking responsibility?

by Deutsche Umwelthilfe DUH (Environmental Action Germany) 

In Germany, the demand for foods of animal origin, such as meat and dairy products, remains very high, despite the considerable negative impacts on the environment, health and animal welfare. The need to use a vast amount of land for feed production poses a particular problem, as it leads to the loss of ecosystems that are vital for protecting the climate and species, causes competition for land for the production of food for direct human consumption and stirs up social conflicts in some crop-growing regions. Around 60 per cent of the grain grown in the European Union is fed to livestock. Despite this, domestic feed production is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of the around 10 million cattle, 20 million pigs and 160 million poultry in Germany alone. As a result, Germany remains highly dependent on imports of soy-based feed, mostly from South America, and palm oil continues to be an important feed additive.

DUH's  "Feed Radar" regularly investigates companies along the entire animal products supply chain in terms of their due diligence obligations relating to the use of feeds based on soy and palm oil. As well as looking at companies’ targets, this year’s Feed Radar has, for the first time, also examined the performance of companies in reaching their targets for using more sustainable and conversion-free feed. The report also focuses on the extent to which the requirements of the EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR), which comes into effect at the end of next year, have already been implemented.