The theme of this year’s General Assembly was “Continuing the success of poultry – Learning from research and practice”.

The two Spanish a.v.e.c. members, AMACO and PROPOLLO, co-hosted in an excellent way the successful 56th General Assembly from 19 to 22 September in beautiful Valencia.

AVEC was honoured by the presence of Spanish minister of Agriculture, Miguel Arias, who delivered a speech. After having reminded the importance of the sector in Spain and in the EU, he defended the “European model of production”, a unique model based on very high standards in animal welfare, environment and food safety. He added that our strategy for the future should be based on the formation to the consumption, differentiation of the products and social cohesion to take up the future challenges of the sector.

The Spanish president, Federico Felix, presented the Annual Report 2013 that is available on the AVEC web site. In his speech, the president presented the different dossiers a.v.e.c. is dealing with.

Speakers from very different areas presented their view on future challenges for the agri-food sector and specifically the poultry sector. To stay successful the European poultry industry must optimize the knowledge from research and practice and match them in the best way.

Laurence Bonafos, from the European Commission DG Agriculture and rural development shared her presentation on the current trends of the domestic and international market of poultrymeat and presented the DG AGRI short and middle term outlook of the sector. She made reference to the roadmap of the Commission on upcoming regulatory changes as implementing labelling rules of origin, the new Common Market Organization and the review of Marketing standards.

Dr Gerald Albers, president of EFFAB, the European Forum of Farm Animal Breeders and Director of the Research & technology Centre of Hendrix Genetics, pictured the upcoming challenges for the poultry business with a critical eye on breeding technologies, financial margins, animal welfare and food safety.

Wim Beeftink, director innovation and engineering in Marel Stork Poultry Processing, presented the role of new technologies in the integrated poultry processing in terms of decrease of costs, increase of the value of the product and hygiene standards. He touched also lightly on more efficient use of water and energy and how this relates to that in other parts of the poultrymeat chain.

Fabien Santini from the European Commission Joint Research Center talked about the global outlook of meat production, exports and consumption in 2013. He shared the outcomes of the EU trade policy impact analysis and the impact assessment of sensitive topics as the Agricultural policies, biofuel and climate change with several scenarios tested. He revealed that new impact assessments on the EU-US negotiations and animal welfare are in the eye of the Commission.

The analysis of the latest production and consumption trends of the North American market, the ongoing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the joint opportunities for US and EU were explained in details by Mr Jim Sumner, President of USAPEEC, USA Poultry and Egg Export Council. He outlined how both poultry businesses in EU and USA may win from TTIP.

Duncan Williamson, Senior Food Policy Advisor at WWF UK, introduced its research project “Livewell for life” that aims to contribute towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the EU food supply chain by demonstrating what sustainable and healthy diets could look like for different European countries and facilitating a conducive environment policy for implementation.

Juan Luis Durich, General Manager and Chairman of CONSUM, consumer cooperative in Valencia, as retailer presented an interesting overview of the evolution of consumption of poultry meat in Spain linked to the impact of the crisis on the habits of the consumers.