Lessons for animal nutrition and production science from the Australian Academy of Science Decadal Plan for the Science of Nutrition

The Australian Academy of Science recently released a Decadal Plan for the Science of Nutrition. This plan was focussed on human nutrition, but it is worth considering implications for production animal science and parallels with animal nutrition. One implication for animal production is the need to understand nutrition for health benefits at the whole-of-diet level rather than as a sum of individual foods or nutrients, providing a driver to studies of human food combinations (meals) as well as of feed ingredient interaction effects in animal diets. A second parallel is in the understanding of differences in individual/genotype responses to food/feed. In humans this is termed personalised nutrition and in animals it is becoming a key driver for genetic selection and nutrition management. A third area involves the need for a Trusted Voice in what is a contested media space for both human foods and animal production. While there are different contexts, there remains much that the animal production nutrition and human nutrition communities can learn from each other.