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Author: c001os

World Poultry Day – what will the chicken of the future be like?

Written by c001os on . Posted in Corporate news.

The Hungarian Poultry Product Council and Interprofessional Organization and the Hungarian Poultry and Egg Producers’ Association organized a professional conference on the occasion of World Poultry Day on May 16. The event was held at the Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest.

The event was greeted by István Nagy, Minister of Agriculture, and Balázs Győrffy, President of the National Chamber of Agriculture. Birthe Steenberg, Secretary General of the European Poultry Processors and Traders Association, also attended the event and gave a presentation on the most important issues in European poultry meat production. In addition, the conference featured presentations on the chicken of the future, the situation in the poultry sector and animal health protection in Hungary.
Agrofeed Kft. again contributed to the successful organization of the conference this year with its outstanding support.

Seed shortage threatens Russian grain farmers with bankruptcy

Written by c001os on . Posted in Nutrinfo.

A surge in operation costs could drive many Russian grain farmers into bankruptcy in the current season, Arkady Zlochevsky, president of the Russian Grain Union has said during a press conference in Moscow. The key concerns are associated with seed prices, which have spiked as the government capped imports from Western countries.

The Russian government has imposed import quotas on seeds from countries deemed unfriendly at the end of January. Under the new rules, Russian farmers are allowed to import 33,100 tonnes of seeds through December 31, 2024. Import quota on corn seeds is set at 5,000 tonnes, barley at 600 tonnes, while quotas on wheat and soybean seeds at zero. In 2023, Russia imported 57,700 tonnes of seeds, a lion’s share of which was delivered from Western countries.

The existing quotas have been distributed among Russian grain farmers, though Zlochevsky described the division as “unfair.” He revealed that farmers with no experience dealing with government agencies failed to secure the necessary quotas to keep their operations running smoothly. As a result, large stocks of seeds have accumulated at the Russian customs warehouses, Zlochevsky said. The batches ordered before the government implemented the import quotas should be either returned to the sender or destroyed.

Import quotas triggered a price hike in the Russian market. Compared with the previous year, the average price of seeds nearly doubled, according to Zlochevsky. The cost of fuel and plant-protecting agents has recently subsided, but this only partly compensated for farmers’ losses due to the jump in seed prices.

Zlochevsky said that switching Russian production to domestic seeds in general is the right move. He, however, warned against using import restrictions as an impetus for the development of domestic seed production.

Supporting coccidiosis-challenged broiler chickens through nutrition

Written by c001os on . Posted in Nutrinfo, Poultry.

When broiler chickens are busy fighting the parasitic infection coccidiosis, they can’t absorb nutrients efficiently or put energy toward growth. In addition to traditional medicine, new research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests diet changes might help.

In the experiment, described in a study published in the journal Poultry Science, the university research team the research team induced coccidiosis, and then altered the diet to understand the roles of various ingredients. The team adjusted the starch, oil, and amino acid content of the classic broiler diet and monitored body weight gain and feed conversion ratio.

“If you visualize a triangle, the three points represent diets with the highest starch, oil, and amino acid content,” doctoral student Julianna Jespersen explained. “We used varying proportions of those three ingredients to mix 10 experimental diets, one being a control diet with an equal proportion of each ingredient.”

The optimal diet mix — the diet leading to the highest body weight gain in coccidiosis-challenged birds — consisted of 35.8% starch, 8.9% oil, and 101.3% of recommended amino acids relative to the control diet.

The researchers acknowledge 9% oil inclusion is well above practical levels for the industry. “That level of oil is going to be hard for producers to fathom. But previous research from our lab has shown this parasite reduces lipid absorption in the gastrointestinal tract, so the birds can’t get as much energy or lipid components out of the diet,” said senior study author Ryan Dilger. The researchers acknowledge 9% oil inclusion is well above practical levels for the industry. Producers might look at that and laugh, but the bird is telling us why it should be that high for optimizing outcomes in disease-challenged birds.”

Jespersen says although it may not be feasible to include oil at 9%, the results show that increasing oil to any level above the usual 1% should be beneficial.

Russia launches Meat Shuttle targeting Southeast Asia

Written by c001os on . Posted in Nutrinfo, Pig.

The Russian government and logistics firm FESCO have launched a ‘Meat Shuttle’. This is a railway service for the delivery of perishable products in refrigerated containers from Russia to China and countries of Southeast Asia. The new route will boost the export potential of the Russian pig industry in the Asian direction.

The service will utilise FESCO-operated intermodal and shipping routes via the ports of Vladivostok and St. Petersburg as well as via land border crossing points. The Meat Shuttle will give Russian meat companies an opportunity to send their products to China and the countries of Southeast Asia as part of a single end-to-end transportation without changing the refrigerated container along the entire route, according to the Russian export centre, a government agency authorised to facilitate export.

The new transport route will also save delivery time due to the absence of overload at intermediate points. Meat Shuttle clients will be eligible for reimbursement of up to 25% of transportation costs under the Russian state support programme for the transportation of agricultural products, the Export Center unveiled.

“I believe that given the opening of the Chinese pork market, the Meat Shuttle will be in great demand among Russian exporters of meat products and will allow them to occupy a serious niche in the target market” said Veronika Nikishina, general director of the Export Center.

How will Generation Z expectations transform the poultry meat market?

Written by c001os on . Posted in Nutrinfo, Poultry.

Chicken marketers need to start planning how to future-proof communications with the unique consumer expectations and needs of Generation Z.

“Our future consumer is really forging a new food future. What I mean by that is that they’re doing things differently from their parents in terms of food,” Michele Murray, executive vice president, Food Agriculture and Ingredient Practice, Ketchum, said. For example, 68% of Generation Z say they are cooking differently than their parents, with only 20% indicating that the way they ate as kids impacts the way they eat now. “We’re seeing a major shift in how this particular target audience, Generation Z is choosing their food, making purchasing decisions and their general attitude about food,” she added.

One of the biggest differentiators between Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, and previous generations is that there is a large part of this demographic that considers themselves food evangelists. This is likely due to their lifelong exposure to social media and the internet. “When we first identified this as a consumer segment back more than 10 years ago, 22% of the overall population fit into that food evangelist category,” Murray explained. “But for Generation Z, we found that over half describe themselves as food evangelists.” In other words, this demographic is highly interested in understanding more about food and sharing that food story with the people around them.

Generation Z is also highly value-driven when it comes to the food they purchase in terms of the environment. They also believe their food choices say something about them – from sustainability to body issues and even when it comes to certain political issues. They feel the weight of the world to make certain decisions about food and are judged by society. These are certainly aspects that cannot be ignored in the market communication of chicken meat towards a consumer segment that will soon represent a significant purchasing power.

Plasma treatment reduces mycotoxins in grains

Written by c001os on . Posted in Nutrinfo.

Treating wheat and barley grains with atmospheric cold plasma has been found to reduce mycotoxin levels and boost seed germination. Canadian researchers have shown that by using a relatively low temperature version of the typically superheated matter they were able to lower levels of harmful toxins caused by fungi that thrive in warm, humid conditions.

Lead researcher Ehsan Feizollahi, from the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta, said the discovery could provide the food processing and livestock feed industries with more effective and efficient ways to process grains that were safe for consumption. Mycotoxins pose threats to both livestock and human health.

Feizollahi said because mycotoxins resist high temperatures, removing them from grains was challenging: “There is no effective method currently available for reducing mycotoxins on grain,” adding that common food processing practices such as roasting, baking and frying may only partially remove them: “We need to find better methods of decontamination.”

He created 2 forms of the plasma: as an ionized gas and as liquid. And then used them to treat barley and wheat grains infected with two mycotoxins that are particularly troublesome across Canada and the globe – zearalenone and deoxynivalenol. Using the plasma to decontaminate the grains lowered the levels of the 2 toxins by 54%, which Professor M.S. Roopesh, who supervised Feizollai’s work, described as a promising start.

“With optimisation for the conditions, figuring in factors such as the type of plasma, treatment conditionals and treatment time, we could achieve much more than 54%. Ultimately, that means farmers could use more of their grain, so there’s less waste, and from the health point of view, humans and animals can consume the grain and not be affected by mycotoxins,” added Roopesh.

The researchers also found that the treatment processes they used took only a short time, ranging from a minute to an hour, potentially increasing efficiency for the food processing industry. The treatments are also environmentally sustainable.

What role will circularity play in the future of feed production?

Written by c001os on . Posted in Nutrinfo.

Panelists at the 2024 Feed Mill of the Future Conference covered topics including technologies and techniques that can improve feed production’s efficiency and bottom line.

Circularity is based on the concept of reduce, reuse and recycle, and focuses on the goal of repurposing and eliminating waste, therefore improving environmental sustainability. Feeding human food waste to insects that will break down that waste and then using the insects in animal feed to produce protein that will then feed humans is an example of circularity.

“Circularity is not a new concept. It makes a lot of sense to try to extract value from all parts of resources,” Maye Walraven, North American general manager and chief impact officer, Innovafeed, said. “But I think it’s becoming more of a trend or more of a priority because we are feeling environmental pressure.”

As an insect producer, Innovafeed was inspired to build upon processes that occur naturally and improve upon it. “We kind of took our inspiration through nature and, in nature, insects really act as a super upcycler,” she said. “They will feed on this very low-quality biomass that other animals won’t eat … and so we’re really trying to reproduce that on a large industrial scale where we grow insects and we tap into very large stocks of byproducts that are available.” The insects are then used as feed ingredients, including oil and protein, as well as even the insects’ waste products as a fertilizer.

The panel also discussed the role of feed additives and artificial intelligence in improving sustainability and reducing waste.

Study on the rapid decline in groundwater levels

Written by c001os on . Posted in Nutrinfo.

Groundwater levels across the world have shown widespread and “accelerated” decline over the past 40 years, driven by unsustainable irrigation practices as well as climate change, according to a study published at the end of January.

Groundwater is a major source of fresh water for farms, households and industries, and depletion could pose severe economic and environmental threats, including falling crop yields and destructive land subsidence, particularly in coastal areas, said the study, published in the Nature scientific journal.

“One of the most likely major driving forces behind rapid and accelerating groundwater decline is the excessive withdrawal of groundwater for irrigated agriculture in dry climates,” said Scott Jasechko from the University of California, Santa Barbara, one of the paper’s co-authors.

But drought, driven by climate change, was also having an impact, with farmers likely to pump out more groundwater to ensure their crops are irrigated, he said.

Depletion has been particularly pronounced in arid climates with extensive croplands, said the study, which analysed 170,000 wells in more than 40 countries. Northern China, Iran and the western United States were among the worst-hit regions.

More than a third of the 1,693 aquifer systems – bodies of porous rock or sediment holding groundwater- monitored by the study fell by at least 0.1 m per year from 2000 to 2022, with 12% seeing annual declines of more than 0.5 m. Some of the worst hit aquifers in Spain, Iran, China and the United States fell by more than 2 m per year over the period. In around 30% of the aquifers studied, the depletion rate has accelerated since 2000.

Some aquifers did improve over the period, in part as a result of local measures aimed at restricting how much water can be pumped out. Aquifers can also be replenished with water diverted from elsewhere. However, such recoveries were “relatively rare” and much more work still needed to be done, Jasechko said.

The situation of the global synthetic milk market

Written by c001os on . Posted in Cattle, Nutrinfo.

Food-tech start-ups are using precision fermentation technologies for another alternative to cow’s milk. This segment’s future remains vague as conservative consumers are not likely to quickly embrace synthetic products. While lab-grown meat has already been around for some time, lab-grown dairy is something consumers do not frequently hear about.

“Synthetic milk is still a somewhat emerging industry, with many start-ups in their research and development phase. However, some companies are leading the way with products already in the market,” comments Milena Bojovic, a PhD candidate at Macquarie University, Australia. She pointed to the US-based company Perfect Day as one of the examples of a start-up working in this field.

‘We’re changing the process, not the food’ – this is Perfect Day’s slogan, reflecting the key feature of precise fermentation technologies. Ultimately, it will showcase products indistinguishable from cow’s milk. The milk from bioreactors will have the same taste, appearance, mouthfeel and good nutritional value.

Milk obtained through precision fermentation, referred to as ‘synthetic milk’, is environmentally friendly. “Because this novel form of animal protein can be produced without a cow, there is a significant opportunity to reduce methane and carbon emissions, water pollution, land use and animal welfare concerns,” Bojovic explains.

While the short and mid-term outlook of the synthetic milk segment is not yet clear, analysts express confidence that the products obtained through precise fermentation will gain a foothold on the market in due course. As precision fermentation technologies are becoming more advanced, synthetic milk is expected to become more affordable over time. One of the start-ups, Australia-based All G Foods, has rolled out plans to make its synthetic milk cheaper than cow’s milk in the short term. “Novel proteins like synthetic milk offer another pathway to increase sustainable food production.” Bojovic added.