Our review of developments in the arena of single cell feed protein production was our highest hitter in terms of traffic last month. The article covered the SCP producers attracting venture capital, and others like Unibio who are participating in large supply chain research projects but it also evaluated some of the asset light or more cost effective manufacturing models that are starting to take hold.
Our second most read story last month covered the USDA's June estimates for domestic corn and soybean planting and grain stocks. The acreage debate heated up in the US in July after the planting report showed corn acreage at 91.7 million, which was a 3% increase from 2018. However, that report was criticized with analysts and farmers talking about huge uncertainty over planting rates due to the wet spring season.
Our third most read story concerned DSM and its move to file for EU authorization for its new additive for dairy cows that it claims will reduce methane emissions by around 30% and, thereby, significantly reduce the environmental footprint of milk and dairy products.
There was a lot of interest in an article on FeedNavigator reporting on the decision by Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) to exchange a set of grain handling facilities and elevators located in the US Midwest.
An industry M&A rumor that was first reported back in May was still gaining traction in July.
It was Bloomberg that first announced that sources closed to the deal were claiming that Dutch group, Nutreco, was in advanced talks to buy the animal feed business of South Korea’s CJ CheilJedang Corporation.
We looked for comment but Julia Hart, spokesperson for Nutreco, told us then the Dutch company did not comment on speculation or rumor.
When asked about Nutreco’s ambitions in terms of the Asian market, she said that “as a healthy growing business, we keep our eyes open for all kinds of different opportunities to help us do what we are doing, and, more than that, I can’t say.”
The sixth most read story in July on FeedNavigator was our report on the USDA forecast for record soybean production in Brazil for the 2019/20 marketing year.
The US agency predicted lower soybean exports from that South American producer on the expectation of lower demand for soy from China due to the extensive pig culling in the Asian behemoth arising out of the ASF outbreak.
A story about venture capital interest in a Singapore based insect protein player came in seventh in our ranking of most popular stories last month.
Nutrition Technologies said the capital raised in the Series A round will go towards the establishment of its new manufacturing plant to be located in Johor, Malaysia.
“We’re moving into a renovated factory site to increase our speed to market, so will be producing by the end of 2019, and at full capacity by the end of 2020,” Nick Piggott, co-founder and CEO of the company told us.
When operational, the Nutrition Technologies' facility will be Southeast Asia’s largest insect production facility, with capacity for over 18,000 tons of insect-based feed ingredients and organic fertilisers every year, said the company.
A story published in early July garnered reader interest. Land O’Lakes and Mars Wrigley are evaluating a raft of feed and feed additives, services and innovative approaches to use in an on-farm trial as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on dairy farms in the US.
The Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes and Chicago-based Mars Wrigley announced the initiative at the end of May, and a selection of submissions are set to be highlighted at a pitch event in August.
Our ninth most read story last month was the piece on New Zealand's interim Climate Change Committee report advising the NZ government on how to reduce agriculture's methane and nitrous oxide emissions; it recommends a farm-level payment and rebate scheme to motivate and reward farmer actions.
A story about creating gin from peas instead of wheat, and the knock-on supply of feed from such an endeavor, captured readers' imagination last month.
While the researchers involved in the UK and Ireland project saw that pea gin would have a larger land footprint than wheat gin, depending on rotation effects, they argued that the supply of protein rich feed co-products and their use in livestock production would offset the higher carbon footprint of the pea version.
"In the starch fraction there is a protein rich co-product that is especially good at replacing soybeans in animal feed. It is only when you consider using this concentrated protein in the co-product, as an animal feed, that you see the full benefit of using peas instead of wheat as a feedstock for gin production.”