Nanyang in May is the season when the wheat waves are rolling. In this dynamic season, Nanyang held an important academic event on May 16 - the 2024 Animal Nutrition and Feed Application Technology Seminar.
The seminar was hosted by the Animal Nutrition Branch of the Chinese Association of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, undertaken by Muyuan Group, and co-organized by Muyuan Laboratory, Nanyang West Lake Muyuan Institute of Synthetic Biology, and Henan Provincial Key Laboratory of Green and Healthy Pig Breeding. The theme of the conference is "Cultivating New Quality Productivity and Promoting Green Sustainability", which aims to focus on the latest applications of animal nutrition and feed technology and promote the green and sustainable development of the industry.
At the seminar, outstanding scholars, experts and industry technical elites conducted in-depth discussions on four major themes, namely the application of low-soybean diets, industry insights, new quality productivity and food safety. Through these discussions, it is expected to promote technical exchanges and cooperation in the industry, and inject new impetus into the development of animal nutrition and feed.
【Speech】
Soybean meal reduction and substitution is a technological revolution in the feed industry
In his speech, Li Aike, vice chairman of the Animal Nutrition Branch of the Chinese Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Association and chief researcher of the Academy of Science of the State Food and Material Reserves Administration, said that at present, the feed breeding industry is not only facing unprecedented challenges, but also contains high-quality development opportunities for new quality productivity, and the technological innovation and steady development of the animal nutrition and feed industry are of great significance for ensuring national food security and vigorously promoting the sustainable progress of agriculture.
At the seminar, Chu Ke, vice president of Muyuan Co., Ltd., delivered a speech on the theme of "cultivating new quality productivity and promoting green and sustainable development". Chu Ke first emphasized the importance of promoting the application of low-soybean diet technology. She pointed out that in recent years, the aquaculture industry has made remarkable achievements in reducing the proportion of soybean meal added, and the proportion of soybean meal has dropped from 17.3% five years ago to 13%. This change not only helps to reduce the cost of breeding and improve the efficiency of breeding, but also plays a positive role in promoting the sustainable development of the industry.
Chu Ke also mentioned that the low soybean diet can be further reduced in theory, but it is currently limited by economic benefits and cannot be widely used in commercial production. However, she believes that with the R&D and innovation of unconventional protein raw materials such as small varieties of amino acids, high-protein corn, and bacterial protein, technological innovation will further promote the reduction and substitution of soybean meal.
It is understood that Muyuan has long been committed to the research of low soybean diet, and has cooperated with Westlake University to develop synthetic biotechnology, focusing on the reduction and substitution of soybean meal. In April 2024, the complete cost of the company's pig breeding was 14.8 yuan/kg, and the decrease in cost mainly came from the improvement of production performance and the decline in feed costs.
Hu Geng, director of the Feed and Veterinary Drug Division of the Henan Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said in his speech that the reduction and substitution of soybean meal is a technological revolution in the feed industry, which is a scientific and systematic project, which requires multidisciplinary and multi-system high-level grafting and cross-integration. In recent years, under the care and guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Henan has been committed to improving the efficiency of the feed industry, opening up and adjusting the structure, actively promoting the four major actions of reduction and substitution, promoting scientific and technological innovation and transformation of achievements, accelerating the iterative upgrading of the industry, and emerging new technologies, new products and new processes. A group of enterprises represented by Muyuan Group have the courage to take the lead in exploring and promoting the technological progress in the application of low soybean meal diet, and have achieved gratifying results.
【Application of low soybean diet】
A number of companies are actively promoting the application of low soybean meal diets
In recent years, in accordance with the deployment of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the implementation of soybean meal reduction and substitution actions in the feed breeding industry, and the vigorous promotion of low-protein diet technology, has achieved remarkable results.
Huang Qingsheng, Director of the Feed and Forage Division of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, emphasized the urgency of grain saving in animal husbandry in the report "Jointly Promoting Grain Saving Action in Breeding and Promoting the High-quality Development of the Industry". He pointed out that driven by the "Three-year Action Plan for Reducing and Replacing Soybean Meal for Feed", the proportion of soybean meal used in animal husbandry in 2023 has dropped to 13%, a decrease of 1.5 percentage points from 2022. However, 45% of the protein raw materials in the feed raw materials still rely on imports, so it is imperative to implement the action of saving food in farming.
During this period, a number of enterprises actively promoted the application of low soybean meal diets and achieved remarkable results. Liu Songbai, senior pastor of Wen's Food Group Co., Ltd., shared the research progress of low-protein multi-amino acid balanced diet for broilers, and mentioned key technologies such as net energy system and digestible amino acid system, which provided a foundation for the promotion of low-protein diet.
Zhou Guilian, President of the Feed Research Institute of New Hope Liuhe Co., Ltd., elaborated on the key technical path of soybean meal reduction in the report, including the construction of a database of nutritional value of feed raw materials and the development of new soybean meal alternative raw materials. He Huan, nutrition director of the feed R&D department of the twin group, shared the group's practice under the low-protein diet technology system, and successfully reduced the amount of pig feed soybean meal from 17.1% to 6.9% by exploring the mode of pig net energy requirement and net energy lysine balance.
Yangxiang has also achieved remarkable results in soybean meal reduction and substitution. Wang Junwen, deputy director of the Nutrition Research Center of Yangxiang Feed Division, provided a set of overall nutrition solutions, and successfully reduced the amount of soybean meal by 5%-6% through the combination of multiple technologies. Cargill, the world's leading animal nutrition company, also shared their experience in applying low-protein diets, and achieved the reduction and substitution of soybean meal by establishing a raw material nutritional value evaluation system and a precision nutrition system.
Finally, Yang Yamin, head of amino acid application research and development of Muyuan Co., Ltd., emphasized the importance of saving food and beans in the industry, and said that Muyuan has been committed to promoting the application of low soybean meal diet. She mentioned that although the specific practices of each enterprise may differ, the overall technical path of low-bean diets involves the construction of multiple systems and the continuous exploration of optimal nutritional needs to improve application performance and efficiency and reduce costs.
【Industry Insight】
There is a huge space for reducing the amount of soybean meal for feed
In the context of the global soybean market, the supply situation is gradually loosening, and the domestic soybean meal price has decreased from nearly 5,000 yuan/ton in September 2023 to 3,400 yuan/ton at present. Still, the 2024/2025 soybean production remains uncertain due to unpredictable weather.
For example, the May Day floods in Brazil have caused market volatility, and the impact of weather in the United States on soybean planting in the coming months is also in the spotlight. At the same time, the possible trade policy changes brought about by the 2024 U.S. election have also added uncertainty to the market. In this series of variables, finding alternatives to soybean meal to obtain relative certainty advantages is undoubtedly a direction that needs to be further explored. This is the view shared by Yao Hui, general manager of COFCO Futures' Wuhan Business Department, in the "Global Soybean Supply and Demand Analysis and Outlook".
On the other hand, future changes in domestic oil demand may have an impact on the domestic soybean and other oil mix. The diversified oil and oil structure provides more formula options for feed breeding enterprises.
Wang Liaowei, senior economist and director of the decision-making service department of the National Grain and Oil Information Center, said in the report "Soybean Oil Consumption Trends" that since 2000, the continuous growth of meat, poultry, eggs and milk production in the mainland has promoted the rapid development of the feed industry. As the main protein raw material, the consumption demand for soybean meal has increased significantly. However, soybean imports continued to climb against the backdrop of slow growth in domestic production. In 2023, the mainland imported 99.41 million tons of soybeans, compared with 20.8 million tons of domestically produced soybeans. Under the condition of meeting 41% of soybean oil consumption demand, 79,354,800 tons of soybeans are needed every year.
It can be seen that the reduction and substitution space of feed soybean meal is huge.
In the context of the global soybean supply tends to be loose but the yield is still uncertain, finding alternative soybean meal to gain a certain advantage, as well as coping with the impact of changes in domestic oil demand on the structure of soybeans and other oilseeds, are important directions that we need to pay attention to at present.
【New Quality Productivity】
Experts are discussing new technologies and processes for low-bean diets
In the afternoon conference, the "new technology and new process to achieve low soybean diet" were mainly discussed, focusing on new quality productivity.
First of all, Professor Li Yuling, chief expert of corn industry technology system in Henan Province, shared the report on "Nutritional Quality Status and Efficient Utilization of Corn Varieties". She pointed out that corn, as the king of high yields, has great potential to increase yields. Through in-depth research and application of technologies in the corn value chain, we will continue to improve its quality and efficiency, thereby striving to ensure the country's food security.
Then, Xue Min, an expert from the Feed Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, made a keynote report on "New Protein Raw Material Manufacturing and Precision Feed Processing Parameter Database". The characteristics and processing techniques of a variety of new protein raw materials are discussed, and the understanding of these new protein raw materials is enhanced. Although the current cost of synthesizing bacterial protein from one-carbon compounds is relatively high and the production capacity is limited, we expect to promote the reduction and substitution of soybean meal by increasing the industrialization and promotion.
Dr. Mengzhen Nie from Westlake University brought a report on "Progress and Prospects of Research and Development of Small Varieties of Amino Acids". In the report, Dr. Nie showed the research and development results of small varieties of amino acids, especially phenylalanine. Through technical optimization, the metabolic reaction steps have been greatly shortened from 15 steps to 4 steps, and the theoretical conversion rate has reached 100%, thereby reducing the production cost by about 40%. We expect this technological innovation to bring far-reaching changes to the entire industry.
In addition, the application of cereals has also received extensive attention. Dr. Wang Weiwei from the Academy of Science of the National Food and Material Reserves Administration shared a report on "Application of Biological Fermentation Technology in the Development of Grain, Oil and Feed Resources". She emphasized the importance of new technologies in the development of grain, oil and feed resources, especially biological fermentation technology, and believed that its application prospects are very broad.
The development of new quality productivity is the key to promoting high-quality development. The cultivation of high-protein cereal varieties, the research and development of small varieties of amino acids, the substitution of miscellaneous grains and the development of microbial protein are the core technical paths for the industry to achieve low-soybean meal diets. These new productivity will soon be widely used in the industry, further reducing the use of soybean meal in the mainland's aquaculture industry, thereby reducing dependence on soybean imports and truly ensuring that the Chinese's rice bowl is firmly in their own hands.
【Food Safety】
The control of raw materials is the key link
Food safety is not only the lifeline of an enterprise, but also the cornerstone of a company's sound operation and sustainable profitability. It acts as a safe haven when it comes to preventing risks. Legal and compliant business practices undoubtedly provide enterprises with a stable bottom line and a lasting guarantee of profitability.
Dr. Li Jun from the Feed Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, as a researcher of the feed processing and quality and safety innovation team, elaborated on the "Feed Quality and Safety Risk Early Warning and Prevention and Control Countermeasures" through a video. He clearly pointed out that the management of feed quality is a comprehensive system engineering, which requires our continuous attention and efforts.
In feed quality and safety, the control of raw materials is a key link. Guo Jiyuan, chief scientist of animal nutrition of Qingdao Weilan Biological Co., Ltd., systematically explained how to comprehensively evaluate raw materials in his report "Case Analysis of Feed Raw Material Quality Evaluation". He proposed that the evaluation of raw materials needs to be carried out from multiple dimensions, including the value of raw materials, sources, technological processes, core quality indicators, and acceptance and testing methods. This requires multiple departments such as purchasing, nutrition, quality control, and feed processing to work closely together to ensure that the final product meets the established standards.
On the other hand, fast and accurate detection technology is an important means to control the quality of raw materials. Sui Li, the technical support leader of the animal nutrition and health project of CTI, shared the difficulties and solutions of near-infrared application technology. She mentioned that near-infrared technology has been matured and stably applied in the feed industry, providing technical support for the industry to quickly evaluate raw materials.
Trainee Editor: Li Wenyu | Reviewer: Chen Xiaojuan | Review: Li Zhen | Supervisor: Wan Junwei