By Dr. Shiva Kumar, Technical Director, TN South Asia
Sustainable farming is based on three pillars: environmentally sound, socially responsible and economically viable. For all these pillars, innovation will be key and hence, advances in animal nutrition will play an important role, where we have concrete challenges in economical optimization of the value chain and meeting product quality demands, whilst safeguarding animal wellbeing and human health.
Creating the perfect ration can help propel food-producing animals towards optimal nutrition,
health and production, contributing to better usage of resources and sustainability. Origin and seasonality of raw materials can have a significant impact on nutritional profiles, making it challenging to know the actual quality of the product at the moment of feeding it to the animals.
This can impact the performance of the animals and/or production costs putting at risk the business objectives of the farm or unit. Meanwhile, farmers and feed producers are dealing with price fluctuations of feed ingredients, due to market demands, increasing the pressure on profit margins as well.
Feed quality is key
We also see that farm sizes have gone up in the past years. This gives the opportunity for direct purchase/access to raw material to farms which introduces new challenges: farmers need to know what they buy from a nutritional value point of view in order to optimise feed cost and performance. Overall, the diets have not changed so much, but the inclusion of new raw materials like by-products, has introduced new opportunities as well as challenges; as their quality is also variable. All of these changes in how and where the feed is produced demands that raw materials quality has to be monitored upon arrival in an easy way and everywhere you are.
Lab testing, including wet chemistry, is often accepted as one of the most accurate ways of analysing the chemical composition of raw materials. Feed mills often favour lab testing. This testing process, however, is rigorous and lengthy which doesn’t make it an accessible or viable option for many farmers.
New portable innovations with NIR
The development of new technologies in the area of raw material feed quality evaluation allows for monitoring at farm level to streamline this process and make it cost-efficient. Therefore, an increasing number of farmers are moving towards mobile precision feeding solutions, such as near infrared technology (NIR). NIR technology has already been identified by feed producers as an accurate and quick solution for feed and raw material analysis, providing cost-effective and easy access to real nutrient values in their purchased raw materials.
The technology can be used to scan raw materials or silage and provide detailed information, comparable to traditional lab analysis. Although this NIR technique has been used on a large scale at feed producers and large size integrators, until recently the application has not been available for professional farmers. The technology is now accessible for farms of every size with the introduction of the NutriOpt On-site Adviser from Trouw Nutrition. It can analyse feed samples in minutes and, through its powerful nutritional database, provide practical solutions for farmers to optimise their ration and their business.
How does it work?
The NutriOpt On-site Adviser is a handheld scanner, combined with a mobile app. Once both devices are connected, which takes a matter minutes, anyone, can have the nutritional report (energy and protein, fat, fibre, amino acids, etc) of a defined raw material displayed on their smartphone. With the information of the report, the farmer can already assess how the different nutrients deviate from the targets set by their nutritionist. This is possible thanks to a coloured bar placed next to the actual nutritional value. The bar represents a target range (minimum and maximum levels) of the defined nutrient, and the measured value is also placed inside of the bar helping the farmer to, on the spot, evaluate in a quick and accurate way what to do. When measured values are outside of the recommended range, an attention dot is displayed, so action can be taken immediately. With a simple click, the report can be shared with any person, to request further advise helping in a close contact between the farmer and the consultant/nutritionist. This means that farmers and suppliers, as well as their consultants, can scan samples onsite on every batch, giving them more control over quality consistency, performance and costs using good quality data.
Know what’s in the feed – Mitigating mycotoxin risk
Feed safety can only be guaranteed when we have accurate information on what is in the feed (or not). Mitigating mycotoxins is a key topic along the feed production chain, from raw material procurement to homemixing at farm level. Testing of mycotoxins in raw materials and finished feed has become more important, as these toxins pose a serious risk to animal health, milk quality and overall animal performance.
Having accurate data on contamination levels can be used to monitor trends of raw materials per region and to adjust purchasing decisions of raw materials and feed by farmers and feed mills (better risk assessment). This is where Mycomaster plays an important role. This on-site rapid analysis reader gives a reliable indication of mycotoxin contamination in both raw materials and complete feeds
Mycomaster provides rapid, cost-effective and quantitative mycotoxin analyses of over 40 validated feed raw materials and final feed. And it works on-site, bringing flexibility to testing frequency, in support to quality control, formulation decisions and remediation strategies. Trouw Nutrition is an organisation that deeply cares about building a more sustainable future – both for our industry and for consumers. We are committed to transform science into actionable, practical nutrition and farm management solutions to help customers produce quality poultry meat and eggs. We support food producers with the technology that puts advice and data at their fingertips. NextGen technologies ensure that farmers can get control over the diets fed to their animals on a daily basis in order to make informed decisions that will impact their business.