opinion FIVE POSITIVES FOR 2023


January is always something of an economic and trading challenge, creating the need to kick-start business activities after the Christmas and New Year shutdown. The month is also an opportunity, however, to reset attitudes and objectives for the year ahead. So let’s channel Ian Dury and look for reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three (plus four and five). While the past year’s problems and pressures don’t magically melt


away at midnight on December 31, it seems especially good to have left 2022 behind. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dominated the year, inflicting enormous suffering on so many people in the region and around the world. We continue to hope and pray that 2023 will see an end to that conflict, allowing the people of Ukraine and Russia to return to peace. In looking for positives in 2023, therefore, it’s important to state


that this is a business only presentation, focusing on our ‘top five’ list of reasons to be upbeat about feed sector possibilities in the year ahead.


First: We’ve already had 11 months of coping with the economic and trading impact of the war in Ukraine. From a business perspective, this amounts to a valuable period of dealing with the economic fall-out from the conflict. Rather than facing the ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ which dominated company boardrooms in late February last year, we now have a learned knowledge base upon which to plan our 2023 sourcing of raw materials. Addressing production and distribution issues for the year ahead, while still hugely demanding, is also a little less daunting than it was.


Second: Managing energy supplies has proved more successful than expected. This view is open to debate, of course, but a mild winter across much of Europe is helping to ease public energy demands, especially alongside evidence that planned economies have shown what is possible when everyone works together. While energy costs are still exorbitant, certainly in comparison to early 2022, it’s encouraging that the price peaks now forecast for later this year have started to fall to levels below what had previously been predicted.


Third: Energy replacement plans are 11 months closer to producing worthwhile solutions than when the war started. It inevitably takes a substantial amount of time to create new long-term energy sources, but at least we have started moving in the right direction. Hopefully, Europe’s promising direction of travel on the future


development of ‘home-based’ energy supplies will be further advanced by Sweden taking over the Presidency of the Council of the EU on January 1. Having the highest share of renewable energy of any of the EU’s 27 member countries, Sweden is ideally placed to drive the community forward during its six-month term in office. In addition to stating that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made phasing out fossil fuels more pressing than ever, Sweden’s Presidency


PAGE 2 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 FEED COMPOUNDER


pledge is to prioritise efforts to hasten the electrification of the EU; to advance new Batteries Regulation and work on gas market proposals to replace Russian fossil energy with other, low-carbon energy sources. Inevitably, the effects of this focus will impact on the situation in the UK as well.


Fourth: Innovators and entrepreneurs will continue to deliver their annual production and processing solutions for our industry, potentially helping to improve in-plant and on-farm efficiencies and performance. It’s easy not to notice how much the world changes each year,


whether through the arrival of some new item of technology or the addition of an extra 0.001% in chicken growth rates. We use chicken as the example based on new poultry production records, charting growth rate improvements since the mid-1970s. Approximately 50 years ago, the first specialist broilers needed


63 days to reach a market weight of 2kg, at a typical feed conversion ratio of 2.5. Today’s birds hit their market weight in half that time at a feed conversion ratio of 1.7. By way of extra mid-January motivation, we should add that poultry


meat consumption was 22.9kg per capita in 1972, less than half today’s level. In fact, poultry consumption this year is forecast to be 52.3kg per capita with OECD and FAO predicting a further 13.1% growth in chicken meat sales by 2030. (These are all UK market figures and are courtesy of the UK farm business consultants, Andersons). Another key development area, which innovators and start-ups


have in view is the need to find usable feed-based solutions to reduce methane emissions from cattle and sheep. Several feed additives with methane-reduction potential are already under trial around the world. We could do with a major product advance sometime soon, however, maybe even this year.


Fifth: The day when feed crop supplies will again flow freely from Ukrainian farms is surely drawing closer. While none of us know when that day will dawn, we owe it to the people of Ukraine to keep believing and working towards this end. The past 11 months have highlighted the extent to which this previously over-looked country impacts all our lives through its enormously valuable farming output. We certainly won’t overlook that crucial fact again.


Happy 2023.


Editor’s Note: Late last October, our regular contributor Roger Dean fell in his garden in Cornwall, badly breaking his leg. Complications with his recovery have meant he has been unable to write his usual columns, making this the first edition of Feed Compounder without a contribution from Roger for more than 35 years! I am sure all our readers will join us in wishing Roger a very speedy recovery.


Comment section is sponsored by Compound Feed Engineering Ltd www.cfegroup.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68