The 3rd edition of Feed Tech Expo, India’s only feed exposition, was inaugurated by honourable Animal Husbandry Minister, Maharashtra, Shri Mahadev Jankar on Feb. 8, in presence of Animal Husbandry Commissioner of Maharashtra and the galaxy of Indian feed industry stalwarts. The 3-day event was organized on 08-09-10 Feb. at Pune.
More than 3700 poultry, dairy and aqua feed industry leaders from all across the country attended the annual event held at Pune. FTE-18, only feed event of its kind in India, attracted 81 participants to the trade show floor. Exhibitor demonstrated the latest innovation in equipment, supplies and services used in feed industry.
During the inaugural session, focus was given on industry challenges & its expectations, and rather it was a poser given to the government authorities. Raghavan Sampathkumar, Executive Director-CLFMA of India enlightened the audience about the transformational phase of the industry and the need for the longsighted view to create credibility in the industry, so as to attract youth to the Agri-business industry.
Poultry breeders’ welfare association of Maharashtra-a body that promotes chicken and egg consumption also supported the feed event and feed conference. C. Vasanthkumar, President of the association said that the industry seeks the government support to create infrastructure, in order to get the raw material at reasonable prices.
CONFERENCE ON ROADMAP FOR INDIAN FEED INDUSTRY
With the support and guidance of the Expert panel, feed conference on the theme “ Roadmap for Indian Feed Industry” was organized on Feb. 9 which was attended by a large number of entrepreneurs representing Indian feed industry.
In the inaugural address, Dr. T.K. Walli, the Chairman of the conference gave the overview of the India Feed Industry and various measures for the further development of the industry, with an emphasis on the production of quality feed.
O. P. Singh, Huvepharma, a renowned personality in Indian poultry industry gave the keynote speech in which he highlighted that vertical integration and R&D is the way forward for feed industry.
OPPORTUNITIES IN ANIMAL FEED INDUSTRY
Dr. Aman Sayed, Alltech presented the growth opportunities in world feed market viz-a-viz Indian feed market to the feed audience. “The global feed industry produced 1.07 Billion MT of feed & registered a growth of 2.57% this year compared to the last year. Previous 5 year data showed a growth of feed industry in Africa at 29% while that of Asia-Pacific at 7%. The reason for this lower percentage for Asia is China, which contributes to 50% feed production in Asia-Pacific, has not shown any growth for the last 2 years. So, the present growth rate is largely contributed by India, Thailand and Vietnam,” Dr. Sayed said.
The presentation figures stated India as the 6th largest feed producer in the world with 34.2 MT production. The country holds number 2 position in dairy feed and number 3 in fish feed, whereas it holds number 1 position in world dairy market and number 2 position in world aqua market. On the basis of these figures, Dr. Sayed predicted good growth opportunities for Indian feed industry.
The availability and pricing of feed raw material was presented by Prerna Desai, Edelweiss Agri Services and Credit. “The impact of GST implementation & demonetisation pushed the unorganized stockists out of business that also resulted in liquidity in the market and lower prices, which can be further pressurised by high yield Rabi crop,” she said.
The speaker had a viewpoint that pricing has to further go down to be at export competitive level so that the stock can be moved out. The balance sheet of almost all feed raw material looked comfortable and the trading future of Indian commodities would depend upon Argentina’s production.
Changes in the regulatory environment was addressed by Vijay Sardana, an agri economist who is well versed with government regulations .The speaker further observed that protectionism is the strategy of many countries across the globe so is true for India. The recent increase in the custom duty of all agro commodities supports the fact.
He also updated the audience regarding the INR 3000 crore budget allocation to livestock and aquaculture industry and suggested that the industry should take a lead in planning the blueprint for government of India for the better utilization of allocated funds for infrastructure development. New budget indicates increase in purchasing power of rural economy and industry should seize the opportunity.
With strict food safety regulations in place, the landscape of feed industry would also change. “The recent Consumer Protection Bill, 2018 states that producer, if found guilty, has to pay compensation on total turnover or profits. The liability might be faced by complete value-chain hence the industry should follow good manufacturing practices”, said the speaker while concluding his presentation.
ROADMAP OF DIFFERENT SEGMENTS
Prof. G. Devegowda, the renowned poultry nutritionist who has earned fame in India as well as internationally, addressed the issue of undigested feed in poultry. He observed that approximately 20 to 30% of poultry feed remains undigested, which promotes pathogen multiplication in the gastro-intestinal tract, leading to poor health, poor performance and economic loss to the farmer.
He discussed the strategies to reduce the undigested fraction, that include natural growth enhancers like enzymes, organic acids, establishing beneficial micro flora and probiotics, including better feed formulation, using ideal amino acids ratio.
Dr. Tanweer Alam from Kemin gave an interesting illustration from bottled water industry, which had an exponential growth from INR 10000 Cr in the year 2000 to INR 160000 Cr in 2018. One could take a clue from such an illustration for the growth of Indian cattle feed industry.
“Indian dairy industry also started as backyard farming then advanced to a stage of commercial ingredient use to some extent and finally graduated to well organized dairy farms which is at par with best running dairy farms in the world,” said Dr. Alam.
The power of segmentation has played a significant role in growth of various industries, so can be replicated in dairy industry. “The semi-organised and unorganized farms are the major customers for commercial cattle feed. Based on various data research, if 50 Million is taken as the number of animals that produce 6-15 litres to be fed with commercial feed and 4 kg feed is fed to animal on daily basis for 250 days, even then the annual feed requirement would be 50 MMT while the present production is only 8 MMT, ” added the speaker while presenting the huge market potential.
“According to a Rabobank report, 26% of total produced milk i.e. 37 MMT in 2014-15 was value-added which is expected to reach 35% i.e. 60 MMT in 2019-20. Similar concept can be implemented to cattle feed market using different ways like standardisation of taste, PE ratio and others,” said the speaker. “Awareness will be another key factor to focus.”
Dr. Vijay Anand, USSEC shared his views on unexplored potential of Indian aquafeed sector. “Although the country holds number 2 rank in the world aquaculture production but Indonesia production is very close and if any technical advancement is not adopted soon then it may slip to 3rd position. Shrimp production is 2nd largest in the world growing @ 15-20% per annum with sharp growth in last 5 years,” he said. Total aquaculture production in India stands at 5.89 MT out of which 5.34 MT is farmed fish and 5 lakh tonne is shrimp. “In 2006-07 aqua feed production in India was 3000 tonnes per annum and shrimp feed was 125000 tonnes per annum which has reached to 812000 tonnes and 1260000 tonnes respectively in 2016-17,” Dr. Anand said.
The installed capacity for fish feed is 2.2 MMT while with 37% utilisation actual production is 0.812 MMT and installed capacity for shrimp feed is 2.38 MMT while with 53% utilisation actual production stands at 1.26 MMT.”In aqua feed production terms, the present installed capacity is 4.58 MMT even at 80% utilisation the actual production can be 3.66 MMT,” the speaker said. “From feed usage point, 5.34 MMT fish @ 1.5 FCR requires 8.83 MMT of feed and on actual basis only 15% of fish is fed with commercial feed. Even hypothetical situation of 50% fish feeding requires 4 MMT.”Indian shrimp industry is as sophisticated as the broiler industry in terms of commercial feed production as well as technology usage.
“The direct interventions which can help to create aqua feed demand include feeding opportunity of 85% of fish which otherwise is unfed, species diversification and installation of commercial hatcheries. The indirect interventions are logistics and cold-chain, and awareness of fish nutrition which only contributes 2% of total protein requirement of Indian population,” suggested Dr. Anand.
SUSTAINABLITY IN FEED PRODUCTION
With limited resources, the global industry is opting for sustainable production which is no different for animal feed industry.
Nishikant Yadav from Market & Markets presented on sustainable alternate feed raw materials that include DDGS, insect meal and algae. “DDGS which is a partial replacement for soybean meal, is a cost-effective alternative that contains better nutritive value and improves feed production efficiency. 10% inclusion of DDGS brings cost benefit of USD 7 per 1000 kg can be achieved,” he said.
“Growing significance of the insect meal is well presented by the fact that in year 2002 only 2 companies were producing it, which reached 16 companies in 2015. Total production of insect meal is 19600 MT per year with 72% sourcing by black soldier fly. The alternative has higher cost compared to the traditional raw material and EU has also restricted its usage in livestock feed where the end consumer is human,” said the speaker.
Regulatory laws and restrictions will determine growth and dynamics of the insect meal industry. According to Markets & Markets, present market size of algae is more than USD 16000 million which is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9-10%. “Algae which has better nutrition profile compared to soymeal, maize and wheat,” he added.
Growth opportunities in South Asia region was presented by Dr, Vijay Makhija, DSM who covered India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The key drivers of the market are disposable income, affordability and convenience, and population growth.
“Introducing eggs in mid-day meal can be a game changer of Indian Poultry industry that would target the challenge of malnutrition also bring prosperity to complete value-chain,” said Dr. Makhija. “Compound feed penetration in the layer market can also bring revolution.”
“The Indian government plan to invest USD 50 million in National Livestock mission in 2013-14 for infrastructure development brings optimism in the dairy sector. It is anticipated that the market size of cattle feed industry will reach 12 MMT by 2020,” he said. Dr. Makhija pointed out the innovations like nursery feed and functional feed can take the aqua feed market forward and India may surpass China as biggest producer.
“Bangladesh is a fast growing poultry industry @ 15% per annum and the present feed production of 5.5 MMT is predicted to reach 7.5 MMT by 2020. The main key drivers are globalisation and liberalisation, and supply of improved breed and feed,” he added.
Due to rapid commercialisation Nepal Poultry market is growing at 10% per year and feed production stands at 800000 tonnes. Lower per capita consumption of poultry meat and eggs at 4.2 kg and 48 eggs compared to Asian level of consumption at 9 kg and 120 eggs leaves much scope of development.
“2015 government data shows per capita consumption of 7.8 kg chicken and 109 eggs in Sri Lanka, which is almost double than India. India may look into the strategies which resulted to such higher consumption and implement the same,” suggested Dr. Vijay.
“The opportunities of South Asian market lead to factors like population growth, growing economy, improving protein portion in the meals which is significantly higher compared to 10 years ago and improved efficiency,” he concluded.
Other topic at the feed conference included the direct link between automation and food safety, improved efficiency, consistency in end-product, better quality control of raw material and feed, energy cost savings, traceability, productivity and profitability which was presented by Pratish Sheth from Siemens. “Intelligent automation may reduce 30% area usage and maintenance cost may lower by 15%,” said Sheth.
The sessions were chaired by renowned personalities of the industry Dr. Ajit Ranade, Dean- Krantisinh Nana Patil College of Veterinary Science, Shriwal, Dr. Pradeep Mahajan who gives consultancy to India and International feed clients and Dr. Manoj Aware, Head Animal Nutrition Division, BAIF, Pune.
