double in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. “This would be the case if consumer demand for livestock products


in LMICs grows explosively as predicted, with a shift to large-scale farms, and if the routine use of antimicrobials is not further curtailed,” states Clift. This is a pretty potent and worrying point for farmers and feed


suppliers, clearly, as we approach the brave new world of post-Brexit trading and the enhanced meat import ‘freedoms’ which are being promised.


Aqua feed synergies Another feed production and supply area where life isn’t quite as simple as we first thought it was, is Aqua Feed, based on the conclusions reached by senior animal protein analyst, Gorjan Nikolik, who works for RaboResearch, a division of the global RaboBank empire. Urging the aqua feed industry to ‘think out of the box’ in order to


access future growth, he argues that feed-focused aqua companies need to embrace the prospect of combining their proven feed production activities with greater involvement in a range of complementary inputs, such as genetics, animal health products, data analysis solutions, hardware and farm management software. Author of a new RaboResearch report titled: ‘How to Succeed


in Aqua Feed: The Feed Industry Should Be the Driver of Change in Aquaculture’, Nikolik’s starting point is that, after many years of growth, the aqua feed industry is now experiencing a deceleration, with increasing overcapacity appearing in nearly all key global markets. His suggested solution therefore is that aqua feed companies should


become the lead investors in the key areas of aquaculture development and that they should do this both for their own good and for the greater good of the industry at large. “Aqua feed players are well-positioned to act as investors in a


number of rapidly evolving aquaculture technologies, ranging from novel ingredients to new farming techniques, such as recirculating aquaculture systems or offshore aquaculture,” he said. “By transforming into aqua- technology suppliers or aqua-venture capitalists, feed companies may be able to enter the higher-growth and higher-profitability segments of the aquaculture inputs industry and help drive the growth of the entire aquaculture industry.” For those whose response to such comments remains more


negative than positive, Nikolik’s final sentence is decidedly blunt. “Change is coming,” he warns, “ready or not!”


Climate change and feed effi ciency There are certainly plenty of contrasting responses – negative, positive and neutral – to the world’s climate change debate and the increasingly active promotion of the need for global action, before it’s too late. Belching cows and sheep, for some reason, find themselves in the


climate change firing line, much more so that cruise ships or air travel. I wonder why that is. In this context, however, a global research project has just been


launched to find fresh ways of feeding and breeding sheep, specifically to reduce their impact on the environment. Led by a team of scientists from Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) in Edinburgh, the project combines international research and industry


PAGE 18 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 FEED COMPOUNDER


expertise to measure the key factors affecting the environmental impact of sheep in relation to both feed efficiency and methane emissions. Research partners in Norway, Uruguay and New Zealand are set


to use sensor technologies, recording equipment and novel protocols to measure these two factors at an individual sheep level, with the goal of developing new sheep breeding solutions by finding ways to identify animals with lower environmental impact. The first phase of the project, which will run until September 2022,


will test different technologies and equipment, such as sensors, imaging techniques, electronic feeders and faecal markers. The aim of this part of the project is to assess the ability of such technologies to accurately predict feed intake and methane emissions from sheep. Beginning with technologies which have already been identified as


‘promising’ in the first phase, experimental work will then be carried out to investigate the relationships between feed efficiency and methane emissions from sheep kept both indoors and at pasture. Data will then be analysed to quantify the economic and


environmental benefits of improvements in feed efficiency and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Dr Nicola Lambe, a sheep geneticist at SRUC, commented: “The


reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue requiring a trans- national and trans-disciplinary approach. The project aims to produce tools to measure, or accurately predict, feed efficiency and methane emissions from both individual animals and sheep systems. It will also contribute towards addressing the argument about the effect of eating meat on global warming, with sheep making use of land often unsuitable for other agricultural production, except conifers, at least in the UK.” The UK part of the project is backed by £250,000 in funding from


the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Research Council of Norway and New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries. Hopefully, this will prove to be money well spent.


European Livestock Voice campaign Finally, I’d like to draw attention to the recent launch of FEFAC’s European Livestock Voice campaign which is designed to bring balance to the global debate around livestock production in the face of rising societal and environmental demands. Joining forces with over a dozen other livestock-linked organisations


in the EU, the FEFAC initiative seeks to ‘evaluate the other side of the story’, hopefully helping to inject some much-needed balance and factual information into the ongoing livestock versus the environment argument. In addition, by way of addressing the ‘fake news’ climate in which


now live, the campaign’s release statement included two examples of misinformation about our industry. • NO – 1kg of beef does not require 15,000 litres of drinking water to be produced. • YES – The average size for livestock farms in Europe is below 50 hectares and Europe remains a model of family farming. • NO – Using land for animal feed does not necessarily compete with land for human food. • YES – European farmers care for their animals as it is fully in their interest to do so.


All simple points really, but we need to keep making them.


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


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