Brief overview of the origin of this special issue
1Initially, this special issue was to be exclusively devoted to scientific papers related to the 7th International Feed Conference to be held in Vienna in spring 2020. CRA-W being one of the co-organizers of the conference took the task of organizing the publication of peer-reviewed articles drawn from the communications made during the conference. However, occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic messed up the foreseen time schedule. This explains why the 2020 event had to be cancelled. A virtual conference replaced it in June 2021. It rapidly became clear that the number of articles to publish directly linked to the conference would be insufficient to form a separate issue.
2In the meantime, 2022, the year of CRA-W’s 150th anniversary was already approaching. Among the ideas selected to celebrate the institution’s anniversary, there was a proposal to set up a special issue in the scientific journal BASE supported by CRA-W. Again, however, this requires a sufficient number of publications. That is why the fusion of the two aims appeared as the best solution. The booklet would become a special issue for the 150th anniversary of CRA-W in which a significant part would handle the proceedings from the International Feed Conference 2021.
3The result is a special issue with articles of varying origins but all sticking to the same general theme of animal nutrition. Four articles are taken from the proceedings of the International Feed Conference 2020 held in 2021. They are preceded by an introductory word retracing the history of the International Feed Conferences. Highlighting CRA-W for its 150th anniversary through its research is also a goal achieved since CRA-W research teams wrote no less than 3 out of 6 articles. One of these articles is not part of the International Feed Conference 2021. Nevertheless, it concerns animal feed and therefore combines perfectly with the other articles in the issue.
4There remains a last article unrelated to CRA-W or the International Feed Conference 2021. It comes from ULiège Gembloux Agro-BioTech and deals with a topic that perfectly fits the themes of the International Feed Conference 2021. Adding it to the list of articles that complete this special issue seemed entirely appropriate.
5As this special issue aims to celebrate the 150th anniversary of CRA-W, we take the opportunity here to recall the slogan and logo imagined for this occasion.
