October 27, 2015
BIOMIN forum addresses producer and consumer issues
An eFeedLink Exclusive
International experts addressed producer and consumer issues in the feed and livestock industry at the Jakarta edition of BIOMIN''s Asia Nutrition Forum last week.
As many in the industry would agree, industrially-produced chicken would face rising competition from industrially-produced fish in international meat markets, according to a keynote speech "Current and future global trends on consumption of animal protein" by Professor David Hughes, Emeritus Professor of Food Marketing at Imperial College London. Price competition will be best avoided by differentiating and adding value to meat products such as to distance them from unstable and lower-priced meat commodity markets, Prof. Hughes said. Some industry players are already leading this initiative as consumers are increasingly seeking holistic ''values'' for food products such as ethics, sustainability, provenance and heritage, beyond just making price or ''value-for-money'' considerations.
In his speech "Brand marketing: Challenge, opportunity, success", Professor Hansel D''Souza of S P Jain School of Global Management agreed with the importance of target marketing and adding value to meat products. He gave the example of how Perdue today produces more than a billion chicken feet a year for key markets like China, bringing in more than US$40 million of revenue, when chicken feet were valueless about 20 years ago.
At the producer end, Michael Block, livebird production manager at Tegel Foods, gave an informative and practical presentation ("Operating at peak performance") on the art and science of poultry production on-farm, from shed cleaning and setting up biosecurity standards to ventilation control and health monitoring. According to Block, there is no substitute for being able to read bird behaviour and make required adjustments, and he will tell a new grower to cover their controller and to make adjustments off what their birds are telling them.
As for shrimp production, Dr. Jorge Cuellar-Anjel, project director of Shrimp Pathology and Research at CAMACO Shrimp Company, outlined how global climate change is impacting the shrimp industry worldwide by increasing the susceptibility to diseases ("Challenges, opportunities and success in shrimp health management"). He described how measures such as the development of improved diagnostic tools, and the implementation of tighter biosecurity and best management practices should be considered for successful shrimp farming.
For his presentation on swine production ("Formulating for optimal gut health and performance in swine"), Tony Edwards, pig nutrition and production consultant at ACE Livestock Consulting, emphasised how optimum gut health is synonymous with good performance in swine. For example, he explained how the undesirable aspect of feed complications for swine can be countered with appropriate feed additives such as acids, enzymes and phytogenics. Edwards further cited the example of how a phytogenic product like BIOMIN''s Digestarom® has been shown in field trials to improve the performance of sows and finisher pigs.
The Jakarta edition of the Asia Nutrition Forum would be incomplete without some discussion on mycotoxin management, the mainstay of BIOMIN forums. This was the topic of focus for the presentation "Dietary mycotoxins: Prevalance and consequences for poultry and pigs" by Professor Julian Wiseman, Professor of Animal Production at the University of Nottingham.
Professor Charles Rangga Tabbu of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Gadjah Mada University also gave a very graphic and practical presentation "Problems and the most common clinical and pathological lesions of mycotoxicosis in poultry", which he described clinical signs and pathological lesions of toxicosis due to the mycotoxins aflatoxins, trichothecenes, ochratoxin, fumonisins and zearalenone.