World Dairy Expo Preview: Sustainability by design - ADM’s holistic vision for dairy and livestock nutrition
Director Gabi Acetoze emphasizes the need for cohesive sustainability solutions that benefit animals, land, feed and people—calling ruminants “impressive upcyclers”
17 September 2025
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Join ADM at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin on September 30 - October 3, 2025 at Booth 1711-1712. The team will be available to answer questions and share their latest research data and solutions.
Dr. Gabi Acetoze, the Director of Creation, Design and Development for North America, with ADM Animal Nutrition, was recently interviewed by The Dairy Site’s Sarah Mikesell.
Gabi, how does sustainability fit within ADM Animal Nutrition?
I always appreciate this question because it gives us an opportunity to talk a little bit about our growth pillars in animal nutrition. When we look at what they are – animal robustness, protein- production efficiency, and the third is the environmental impact on sustainability. Sustainability is very much a part of everything we are doing today and what we plan to do in the future. It's a part of our vision and our strategy going forward and part of our day-to-day activities.
There has been a lot of discussion about dairy production and its impact on the environment. What are your thoughts on this?
First, I have to say that a ruminant animal is an impressive machine of being an up recycler. But we all know that there’s always room for improvements within the livestock industry, including the dairy industry. There’s a lot of talk about methane and the impact of dairy on methane, but that's really just one angle of the sustainability system.
One way to investigate that is when you look at the system holistically because all the parts of the ecosystem such as the animal, land, feed and the workers must coexist in a sustainable way for the system to be profitable. I like to see sustainability in a much broader way versus just one angle or the other just because of the complexity of the system itself and how we all take our day-to-day activities within the dairy business to drive those efficiencies, profitability, sustainability and production. All of those must coexist in a very cohesive way for the entire system to be sustainable.
What role does ADM play in this space?
When we look at ADM as the whole company, as well as ADM Animal Nutrition, sustainability is very much a part of who we are and what we do today and every day to become a more sustainable ourselves and to offer more sustainable solutions to our customers to address their own sustainability goals.
Within ADM, we have programs that are regional ag programs and there are other internal programs to improve our own sustainability goals within the animal nutrition sector. These programs are also in line with the livestock industry.
We continue to look for ways to play in this space through innovation. We have a Research and Development (R&D) pipeline today that is focused within the sustainability space for all the livestock species: swine, poultry and ruminants. We also continue to actively pursue and address this space in a way to find solutions that address the customers’ needs on how we can help them with their own sustainability goals. It's an everyday part of who we are today, and it's how we play in this space.
Sarah Mikesell
Sarah Mikesell grew up on a five-generation family farming operation in Ohio, USA, where her family still farms. She feels extraordinarily lucky to get to do what she loves - write about livestock and crop agriculture. You can find her on LinkedIn.
