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In the last few years, the animal feed industry has experienced an amazing period of discovery. Investment in research has been high, governments and international bodies have begun to realise the rising cost (and possible shortage) of food and so have started to step in, animal welfare groups have made great in-roads to improve industry standards, and numerous ground breaking products have been launched. Twenty years ago, the idea of cattle being fed insect meal, or microbial algae pellets would have been seen as pure science fiction, whereas today they are emerging industries.
The need for animal feed innovation was recently summed up by Dejan Miladinovic of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, who explained the biology behind mankind’s need for improved animal feeds, when he wrote, “Optimally, an adult person needs to consume 60g of protein per day. To feed enough protein to the world’s population by 2050, about 790 million tonnes of protein will be required. This number is 50% more than today’s production. Beef cattle need about 100kg of feed to produce 5kg of body-mass, which could be interpreted as 1.3kg of pure protein.”
By this maths, the optimal protein requirement of a person for 21 days requires 100kg of animal feed.
While the logic in this scenario is rudimentary, the need for the animal feed industry to develop is clear. While non-meat sources of protein are available, the fact remains that our grandchildren’s well-being is dependent on improvements in the way we feed our livestock.
Miladinovic outlined our basic processes of manufacturing animal feed in a recent article for AllAboutFeed, when he said, “Feed raw material sources can be defined through three generations. First generation feed sources are commercially available. However, it is in direct competition with human food supply and depends on vast resources of arable land, irrigation and fertilisers. The second generation is less competitive with human food and not based on arable land and irrigation. Second generation feed sources are based on insects and microbes and its usage is challenging due to getting into new technologies and unknown demand. A third generation of aqua feed source is recapturing nutrients from, for example, dairy and pig farms’ wastewater. Science is already developing technologies that can recover phosphorous and nitrogen from manure. These technologies are economically feasible, however markets are quite immature.”
But while he does note the progress made, and the advancement of ‘immature markets’, he also notes the need to, “start the feed-protein revolution to ensure that the world population will be able to have access to food in the future.”
If his theory is correct, then the animal feed industry has some serious work to do to provide sufficient meat for the world’s growing population. The year 2050 is geologically tomorrow, and although insect feed and high-protein canola meal diets may sound high-spec, in terms of future demand, the animal feed industry is losing ground.
Or is Miladinovic wrong?

Photo credit: soyatech

With global meat demand on the rise, and with the cost of food production at an all time high, there has been increased focus among governments, research teams and agribusiness leaders to improve the quality of animal feed. Today’s livestock are fed such high-performing products that nothing is left to chance in ensuring healthy, well-nourished animals.

One such example of this is a recent study from the University of Illinois that analysed the impact of adding fat supplements to pig feed in diets with a high canola meal content. In conclusion, the researchers were able to prove that, “adding supplemental dietary fat is not necessary to avoid reduced growth performance when replacing soybean meal with canola meal in diets fed to weanling pigs.”

The study focused on the use of canola meal as a feed ingredient, as it has a high protein content, and so can be used as a substitute for soybean meal in pig diets. Modern varieties of canola have even been selectively grown with thinner seed coats, and so have less fibre than conventional canola meal.

Speaking of the study, Hans Stein, professor of animal sciences at the University of Illinois said, “Recently, it’s been reported from several experiments that up to 40 percent canola meal may be used in diets fed to weanling pigs without negatively affecting growth performance. However, dietary fat was used as a supplement in all of those experiments to maintain constant net energy among diets.”

As the online science journal Phys.org reports, “Stein and his team formulated four diets by adding 20 or 30 percent conventional or high protein canola meal to a corn-soybean meal basal diet. The energy content of these diets ranged from 2299 kcal/kg net energy (NE) in the 30 percent canola meal diets to 2402 kcal/kg in the 20 percent high protein canola meal diets.” The study goes on to explain how, “Four additional diets were identical to the first four diets except that choice white grease was added, so that each diet contained 2452 kcal/kg NE.”
The results showed that the addition of white grease had no impact on the pigs’ body weight. As the study, which has been published in the Journal of Animal Science, states, “There were no differences in Gain to Feed ratio or in final Body Weight among pigs fed the control diet and pigs fed canola meal diets.”

Instead, the report found that, “Pigs fed diets without supplemental fat had greater average daily gain and average daily feed intake than pigs fed the diets with constant net energy.” While, “Average daily gain, average daily feed intake, gain to feed ratio, and final body weight were not influenced by concentration of canola meal in the diets.”
“The results of this experiment confirmed that it is not necessary to maintain constant Net Energy among diets containing canola meal,” said Stein.

How this study will impact animal feed additives markets has yet to be seen, but for now it appears that those focused on trading fat additives to feed have cause for concern. But beyond that, as the animal feed industry becomes ever more scientific, other feed additive traders may also start to worry about the true value of their agrichemical products.

Photo credit: threadnbutter

For many years, animal feed manufacturers and feed additive suppliers have been discussing the pros and cons of using insects as a raw material for animal feed. Much of the research conducted focused on the safety aspect of feeding insect protein to farm animals, with the practice generally being agreed as safe.

This has meant that recently, many of the legal barriers preventing the use of insects in animal feed are to be dropped. As AllAboutFeed reported in December 2016, “The EU Member States representatives endorsed a European Commission proposal from the EU Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (SCoPAFF). The text is expected to be formally adopted during the spring 2017, which means that insect proteins should be effectively authorised for use in fish feed as from 1st July 2017.”

This was a move that was widely celebrated. For example, Jason Drew, co-founder of South African based AgriProtein (the world’s biggest fly-farmer) stating that. “[The] move by EU regulators [to allow insects to be used in aqua feed] brings insect protein into the mainstream of ingredients permitted in animal feed. This is a big step forward for the environment and for world food security. Trawling the oceans to produce fishmeal is one of the most destructive activities on the planet. Replacing fish protein with insect protein in animal diets allows us to dedicate our oceans to production for human consumption alone.”

Beyond European legislators, last July Enterra claimed a “significant step forward” when it gained Canadian government approval for using, “Dried Black Soldier Fly Larvae as a feed ingredient for poultry broilers.”
Meanwhile, the use of insect meal looks set to expand, because as recently as March 17th, FeedNavigator.com was reporting how, “The International Platform for Insects for Food and Feed (IPIFF) is now aiming to step up its lobbying efforts to ensure EU regulatory overhaul to allow insect meal to be used in other non-ruminant species such as pigs and poultry.”

The method is being seen as a saviour for modern farming. A method that will lessen the use of fishmeal as a feedstock, and so aid the recovery of global fish numbers, as well as providing a sustainable source of phosphates and amino acids.

However, it does pose a new problem. What to feed the insects on?

Cattle Manure for Insect Feed

The answer, according to research conducted by a team from Cornell, may be to use cattle dung as a feedstock. In the study, they found that cattle faeces could provide enough energy and nutrients to feed housefly larvae on an industrial scale.

Reporting on the research, the online journal Phys.org stated how, “The researchers – for the first time – analyzed how efficiently housefly larvae recycled nutrients from dairy cattle manure, and they measured the nutritional value of the resulting larva meal as a feed ingredient.”

The report continued by outlining some of the many benefits of using cow dung as a feed for insect larvae, explaining how, “Their analysis showed that fly larvae lessened the overall mass of the manure and reduced total nitrogen by nearly 25% and phosphorus by more than 6%. Reducing levels of these nutrients in manure makes a more suitable compost. Otherwise, untreated manure used as fertilizer leads to runoff of excess nitrogen and phosphorus into streams and rivers, which causes eutrophication in lakes and oceans, contaminates groundwater and can spread disease.”

The study also found that the insect meal was a good source of calcium and phosphorus, and had levels of protein and amino acids that were comparable with fish meal, as well as a 20% fat content that was high in monounsaturated fats.

The research team published their results in full in the journal PLOS One, where they conclude that, “Our results demonstrated that dairy cattle manure presents a balanced substrate for larval growth, and the spent manure showed reductions in concentration of total nitrogen (24.9%) and phosphorus (6.2%) with an overall reduction in mass. Larva yield at an optimum density was approximately 2% of manure weight. Nutritional analysis of M. domestica larva meal showed values comparable to most high protein feed ingredients. Larva meal was 60% protein with a well-balanced amino acid profile, and 20% fat with 57% monounsaturated fatty acids, and 39% saturated fatty acids. Larva meal lacked any significant amount of omega-3 fatty acids. Evaluation of micronutrients in larva meal suggested that it is a good source of calcium and phosphorus (0.5% and 1.1% respectively). The nutritional value of larva meal closely matches that of fishmeal, making it a potentially attractive alternative for use as a protein-rich feed ingredient for livestock and aquaculture operations.”

Explaining the results, Vimal Selvaraj, an associate professor of integrative physiology in the Department of Animal Science at Cornell and a senior author of the research, said, “We concluded from the study that the overall composition of larva meal with respect to all nutrients, including amino acids and minerals, is comparable to fishmeal and would be a good alternative for use as a protein-rich feed ingredient for livestock.”

The current trend to expand the use of insects as a raw material in animal feed is a healthy trend. With an increasingly hungry planet, and depleting fish stocks, any practical alternative that will give animal feed manufacturers more options is welcome; especially those that can make a more affordable, healthier and sustainable product.

However, some feed experts have questioned the practicality of fly larvae for industrial processing. The fact that fly larvae yields are typically only 2% of manure weight, has led many feed manufacturers to question the profitability of the feedstock. But this ignores the fact that, for example, the U.S. livestock industry currently generates 335 million tons of dry manure per year. Such a large amount of dung would make a lot of insect meal.

For now the researchers hope that their study can remove some of the concerns that fly larvae is an impractical and unprofitable feedstock for animal feed. As Selvaraj says, “In farming-dense regions there is enough manure available to have a substantial impact on larva meal production. This paper is a first step toward realizing this potential.”

Photo credit: Mike Hutchings/Reuters