Uncategorized admin on 19 Aug 2008 07:01 pm
Feed Additive Industry to Grow Despite Biofuel Boom & Food Crisis - EuropaBio
28 July, 2008 - Feed additive producers will be cushioned from the current global food crisis as soaring costs for raw materials such as corn and soybean are likely to see greater amino acid substitution in animal feeds, said Willy De Greef of EuropaBio.
“We are at the end of the era of unlimited cheap supplies of agricultural raw materials and much of future thinking on driving innovation is how we deal with that,” said Mr De Greef.
“One is increasing substitution. People outside the feed world probably have no idea about how good the feed industry is at accessing oils, energy or amino acids, and mixing and matching them to achieve the lowest price.”
Feed additive manufacturers also have no reason to fear the growing use of biofuels by-products in animal feed because most plants are deficient in the same substances and meat producers will still need to supplement their animals’ diets in the same way they do now. The two will co-exist, he said simply.
“I think there will be a renewed attention to substitution. There will certainly be new opportunities provided by fuel crops because there will be a protein fraction in those. The ability of the feed industry and its labs to further increase substitution possibilities will be probably the most effective way to address that issue.
Even the further expansion of by-products from the next wave of biofuels is unlikely to pose a threat to the feed additive industry, said the EuropaBio Secretary General.
“There will be more substitution as by-products from second generation biofuels come on-line but there will also be an increasing place for specific additives. So even in a world where you have a broader range of protein sources available, my guess is that, by itself, this will not stop or reduce the use of lysine or methionine because virtually all crop sources are deficient in the same amino acids.”
Mr De Greef is also sceptical that the development of lysine or methionine-rich crops such as maize can pose any serious threat to those who produce these materials by fermentation.
“If there had been a crop with an economically attractive overproduction of lysine or methionine, we would have known by now. People have been trying to grow maize with a big over production of lysine for a long time. The reason it hasn’t yet worked is this overproduction came at such a cost to the metabolism of the crop that its yield potential went down drastically - and it turned out to be cheaper to use lysine from the fermentation industry.”
