When feeding grain is banned
It's time to redefine nutrition, according to Alltech's president Dr Pearse Lyons.
"In the future, we will be forbidden to use grain for feed and will use fibre," he told a seminar in Auckland in late June.
The tool which will make this possible was solid state fermentation (SSF), which converts fibre to a more digestible feed. Research showed protein content in feed could be lowered from 18 to 14 percent with the same milk being produced.
Lyons said New Zealand's large amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) coming from agriculture was a "major problem coming down the line". But it could be addressed by adopting technology affecting digestion, already available to reduce individual animal gas output by 56 percent.
"We must be aware of animal rights and must educate young people where their food comes from," he said.
The feed industry was "a disaster waiting to happen" as it didn't have full traceability.
"We need to re-imagine growth responses naturally," he said.
Alison Leary, technical production manager for Alltech, said new technology was needed to revolutionise standard diets. In 30-40 years, the world's population would double, but consumption of meat was growing at a faster rate.
Biofuel growth
Biofuel use would grow again as fuel prices increased, so ingredients other than corn and soya beans should be used for animal feeds. While palm kernel was used as an energy and protein source, there was concern at its very high content of indigestible fibre, lower amino acid availability and possible contamination with bark and leaves.
Research work in this country showed when SSF was added to palm kernel in a reformulated diet there was a 6.6 percent improvement in productivity. Reformulating the diets of egg-producing hens resulted in improved laying rates and less feed consumption. With pigs, a reformulated diet reduced costs and resulted in half as many lightweight pigs being produced.
While research work with dairy cows was just beginning, there were indications that complex sugars could be broken down into simple ones. Low doses were being used to see if the efficiency of the rumen could be changed in Portuguese trials.
Dr Karl Dawson, Alltech's director of worldwide research said using the company's Genechip system allowed researchers to look at many characteristics at once when it came to the effect of different feeds on different animals. Traditional ways of measuring animal health, fertility and performance data were slow, resource intensive and there were problems precisely measuring the effects of dietary manipulations.
The Genechip allowed evaluation of the activity of thousands of genes in a single experiment on as few as eight different animals.
"There's an immense data output," he said.
Milk production increases were found in trials on 5000 cows in California and Florida treated with the company's Selplex product that had not been able to be measured in the past.
The feed industry's poor reputation could be improved through using the tool to detect mycotoxin poisoning in cattle very rapidly.
"You don't have to wait until all the hay is fed out and your animals are getting sick," he said.
"This is not a dream, it's a component of sustainability. We are going to see some dramatic changes in animal and also human nutrition."
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