Feed professionals from all across the country participated in 2nd edition of Feed Tech Expo-only feed event of the India organized by BENISON Media. The 3-day event was inaugurated by Dr. B.S. Prakash, ADG (AN & P), ICAR, New Delhi. The exposition started with one day conference on the theme, “Innovations for Sustainable Feed Industry”, at New Grain Market, Karnal.
“Malnutrition along with nutritional security and food safety are of prime concern in India. Over the years, we have laid greater emphasis on crop based agricultural production. No doubt, we have achieved remarkable increase in food grains production, but the animal sub sector unfortunately has not been given proper attention to grow up to its full potential,” said Dr. Prakash said in his inaugural address.
“It is rather high time that the focus should now shift to animal agriculture, and increase its financial outlay as per its potential,” he added.
The theme address of the conference was presented by Dr. Anup Kalra, CEO, Ayurvet, who talked about the importance of innovations for taking animal feed production to the next level and remain competitive in producing nutritive food for feeding our huge population.
FTE 17 was organized to bring the latest feed technology on single platform and share the knowledge about producing more efficient and complete feed for poultry and livestock industry. FTE 17 therefore focused on solutions for the feed industry that are important and relevant to the development of overall industry.
Dr. T.K. Walli, Chairman of the conference and former President, Animal Nutrition Society of India, pointed out that apart from increasing the tonnage of compound feed manufacture, in order to feed huge population of livestock, poultry and fish stock in our country, it is time that feed manufacturers also produce quality and safe feed. The feed quality standards laid out by BIS, must be truly adhered to, and agencies involved in quality checks need to become more pro active to assure that only good quality feed is marketed in the country. Feed safety will lead us to food safety.
Focus on Safe feed production in the country:
The first day conference was attended by 127 delegates consisted of feed millers, integrators, dairy cooperatives, progressive farmers and other feed professionals. The presentations by eminent speakers from animal nutrition research and feed industry during the day- long conference spread over three technical sessions. Below are the session-wise recommendations from the conference
Access to raw feed material
1. India suffers from feed shortage, however, the country exports huge quantities of feed raw material, especially soybean, while the maize is imported. The country also imports certain feed additives, amino acids and other essentials, it is time we rely less on imports of these items and start making in India.
2. Certification of raw materials/finished products for quality assurance and regulatory framework is essential.
3. Favourable policies should be framed to produce newer feed raw material and also improve the production of animal feed ingredients.
4. Potentiality of sea weeds/extracts etc. as animal feed/additives should be given priority.
5. Since India is number two in fruit and vegetable production, the use of fruit and vegetable wastes as animal feed ingredients accompanied with simple technology of drying and silage making, could bridge the gap between demand and supply of nutrients for different species of animals.
Feed Production Technology
1. Standard operating procedures (SOP) must be followed in feed milling.
2. Balancing of nutrients like energy, protein, minerals, fibre, Ca : P ratio should be taken care of in the compound feed.
3. The feed millers have to innovate, adopt new practices and offer flexibility to meet the demand of mid–sized farms. Custom mixing, ration balancing, working more closely with the individual farm will become necessary for survival.
4. Advancements in newer raw materials may result in newer feed stock that may require newer feed formulations.
5. Newer developments in processing technology should be adopted to increase production efficiency and environmental sustainability.
6. Equipment advancement and digital age becomes even further intertwined with information technology, eventually allowing for a flow of detail throughout the steps in the food chain where farm, feed mill, processing plant and consumers are concerned.
7. Ingredients, which are low in carbon footprint should be given preference for making compound feed.
Feed efficiency and feed safety
1. Antinutritional factors like tannis, phytates, saponons, protease inhibitors, NSPs etc are intrinsic factors that have toxic effects on nutrient utilization and feed efficiency. While mycotixins, pesticide residues, heavy metals, bacterial toxins extrinsic factors, reduce feed availability and nutrient concentration and cause toxicity in poultry from liberated toxins.
2. The importance of safety regulations to produce safe feed, should be strictly adhered to, by the feed millers for sustaining feed efficiency.
3. Although pathogenic bacteria, molds and yeasts can affect nutritional quality of feed raw material (FRM), all these can be safely reduced by increasing pelleting temperatures combined with heat resistant organic acids bound to their salts.
4. Pelleting often results in reducing the moisture content of the feed, which can be compensated by moisture optimizing management approaches, such as Moisture Management System (MMS).
5. Feed raw materials need to be properly screened for aflotoxins, fungus, fungicides/ pesticides, before buying in bulk.
6. In view of the consumer resistance to the use of antibiotics as growth enhancers, industry has to explore newer approaches towards gut modulation, including the use of prebiotics, probiotics, short chain fatty acids, enzymes, aromatic plant extracts and essential oils (Eos).
During 2nd day of the event, an awareness program was organized by US Soybean Export Council in association with Poultry Federation of India. The half day event was well attended by farmers and industry representatives.
Prachi Arora, BENISON Media said that, “the idea to organize this event was to build a single point business platform dedicated to the feed industry, and I feel honored to announce that 90% of exhibitors were satisfied with their participation and showed their interest to join us again in the next edition”.
The participation area was increased by almost 80% which proves the well acceptance of the event by the industry. The 3-day event was attended by 2734 visitors who participated from various parts of the India and also from Nepal, Bangladesh and Africa. We hope to bring another edition of well planned event to you soon.
