EU Vulnerability for Access to Essential Nutritional Feed Additives
The EU dependency on third countries for the supply of EU demand in feed proteins, and in particular reliance on imports of soybean meal, was reported among the top priority issues to be tackled in the framework of the EU Open Strategic Autonomy. However, the EU dependency upon Third Countries for essential feed additives, in particular China, was not yet analysed in detail, most likely due to a lack of public data. With the support of its members, FEFAC tried to fill the current data gap and issued in September 2025 a study on EU vulnerability regarding access to essential nutritional feed additives.
The EU is dramatically dependent on Third Countries for almost all of the vitamins and amino-acids it needs to feed animals. Furthermore, China holds an ultra-dominant position on the global market of these substances, and even a quasi-monopoly for some, meaning that the EU feed, livestock and aquaculture sectors have very limited opportunities to diversify their sourcing. This further weakens the EU position in international fora.
Using amino acids in feed diets is nowadays the most cost-effective solution to reduce EU high dependency on soya imports, while enabling the reduction of nitrogen emissions and supporting animal health and welfare. Reduced market access to essential amino acids (especially lysine and methionine) would result in higher imports of soya from Third Countries and more nitrogen released in the environment.
Likewise, supplementation of feed with sufficient quantities of vitamins is a prerequisite for animal health & welfare and optimised performances for any existing animal farming system. Deficiency in a single vitamin may be sufficient to affect zootechnical performances, thus impacting on competitiveness of EU livestock and fish farmers and eventually undermining EU food autonomy.
FEFAC calls on EU authorities to acknowledge the extreme feed and food security vulnerability of the EU by recognising as critical both the vitamins and the amino acids supply chains and as deserving an urgent reaction in the framework of the EU Open Strategic Autonomy objectives via a set of measures to mitigate the EU vulnerability. This supposes, among others, instruments to enable the reshoring of the production of these essential substances in Europe, which requires strong incentives to EU operators to make full use of the existing production capacity, ensure continued operation and/or invest in new capacities.
These measures, meant to boost the competitiveness of EU production of vitamins and amino acids, should aim at reducing production costs and should not be at the expense of the EU livestock and aquaculture sectors, which are already facing unfair competition from Third Countries suppliers of animal products.