The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) and NCI co-sponsor the course.

“The general populace has become much more concerned about food safety issues in recent years,” according to Dr. Kim Koch, manager of NCI's Feed Production Center and coordinator of the course. “In a current survey compiled by Michigan State University, more than two-thirds of the respondents indicated that they had concerns with the safety of their food. The feed industry needs to ensure that the meat, milk and eggs produced by the animals that we feed will not pose a threat to the people who consume them. We are becoming more aware of the origin of our grains and their quality. These concerns are pushing new regulations to ensure food safety,” says Koch.

The course features lectures by top experts in the feed industry, case study scenarios, transportation, producers and processors, panel discussions, hazard analysis critical control point, (HACCP), biological, chemical and physical threats, risk analysis, crisis communication, regulatory agencies, and federal regulations.

Course faculty include: Dr. Koch, Northern Crops Institute; Bob Luedtke, Feed Management Systems, Brooklyn Center, Minn.; Matt Frederking, Southern States Cooperative, Richmond, Va.; Dr. Bob Thaler and Dr. Alvaro Garcia, both from South Dakota State University, Brookings, S.D.; Dr. Darwin Britzman, International Nutrition Consulting, Sioux Falls, S.D.; Dr. Cliff Hall, Dr. William Nganje, and Rich Mattern, all from North Dakota State University (NDSU), Fargo, N.D.; Tamara Van Wechel, Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, NDSU; Erdogan Ceylan, Silliker Labs, Homewood, Ill.; Garry Wagner, N.D. Dept. of Agriculture; and Keith Epperson, AFIA.

“This course has attracted feed manufacturers, quality control personnel, and feed ingredient suppliers. Under current U.S. law, they are all required to be able to trace their product one-step forward and one-step back, which means they need to know where it came from and who they passed it on to. The feed industry is a service industry. We are not only feeding animals, but ultimately we are feeding people,” Koch concludes.

Northern Crops Institute supports regional agriculture and value-added processing by conducting educational and technical programs that expand and maintain domestic and international markets for northern-grown crops.

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