Our most popular story last month was an exclusive interview with David Webster, the recently appointed president of the Cargill Animal Nutrition enterprise, on the agribusiness giant revamping its animal nutrition division, shuffling leadership and realigning its business units to maintain its double-digit growth.
To emphasize its increasing focus on health, he said Cargill has renamed the entire division Cargill Animal Nutrition and Health:
“This is an important move for us that not only [indicates] who we are today but where we are heading in the future. We have added the world ‘health’ to reflect the important work we have been doing in the specialty health ingredients area. Health is a key growth area for the whole of Cargill, not only in the animal space but in the human space also.”
“It is an important time for us to signal to the market that we are a different enterprise focused on expanded capabilities,” said Webster.
Its robust portfolio makes Cargill a global leader in feed and premix and in aqua nutrition but also in health ingredients, arising from its Diamond V acquisition, he said.
“Over the past couple of decades, via our people, our approach and our strategy, we have had phenomenal growth and success, both organically and through acquisitions. We want to continue that growth in the future, [and in order to do so], we are realigning our organization.”
Our second most popular story last month was about Cargill announcing that it had secured an agreement with White Dog Labs (WDL) to gain access to its single cell protein ingredient.
Kazin told FeedNavigator. “Our collaboration with WDL improves the diversification of our portfolio."
The initial interest is in using ProTyton in diets for salmon and trout.
“Cargill has done chemical composition tests and fish trials on the material originating from WDL pilot facility. The tested material holds promise as an additional tool in feeding salmon," added Kazin.
Coming in at number three in our top ten most read stories from September, was our coverage of the move by the Salmon Group, a Norway based network and purchasing cooperative, to take Brazilian soy out of its fish feed formulations, with immediate effect.
The Group’s members comprise small and medium-sized farmers, but together they purchase around 12% of all fish feed that is sold to salmon and trout farmers in Norway, which translates as 190,000 tons per year.
When asked why the Salmon Group felt the need to act over Brazilian soy now, Maria Schütz Fløisand, its spokesperson, told FeedNavigator:
“This is part of our ongoing work to reduce the carbon footprint of our fish feed. It is not directly connected to the currently reported fires [in the Amazon].”
Ranking high in most read stories from September was our interview with Rabobank on the impact of ASF on feed demand and pig production in China.
The ASF epidemic will be a multi-year and multi-region issue that brings structural change to global animal protein, said Justin Sherrard, global animal protein strategist, with the Dutch bank.
“The scope of the decline in the Chinese herd numbers is such that it will take years to recover from, but it is also because there is no vaccine. Producers are constantly facing the disease pressure, they are facing a challenge of deciding if they should repopulate, or deciding what is the right process to follow to repopulate, what do they need to do to increase biosecurity to the point where they can be confident that repopulating will allow them to take piglets through to slaughter?”
In fact, it is questionable that China will ever recover, said the analyst.
“The scope is incredible – by the end of this year, 50% of the herd in China will have disappeared – that is a quarter of the world’s pigs."
Breeding companies say their breeding herds are not affected by ASF, but Sherrard reckons the mostly likely route to pig repopulation in China will be through retaining gilts within the herd rather than taking those through to slaughter.
“That is likely why the herd will recover but pork meat production will not necessarily recover.”
Our piece about African Swine Fever (ASF) being detected in South Korea, with the country on high alert, piqued readers' interest.
The country's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed the first ASF outbreak on 17 September, the eight country in Asia to have experienced an outbreak of the disease.
The virus was discovered at a pig farm in Paju, near the border with North Korea, which reported its first case of ASF in May, the agriculture ministry said.
Coming in at number six in the rankings of most popular stories was a piece on the September WASDE report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasting a decline in US corn production based on lower yields. It saw soybean production estimates also going lower based on a reduction in expected yield per acre.
However, there was noted uncertainty around the crop production numbers released, with a crop yield forecast from Indigo Agriculture not tallying with the data in the USDA outlook.
Indigo gathers the data used in its crop reports in a different manner than the USDA, said Barclay Rogers, VP of business development for GeoInnovation at Indigo. The company uses a “living map” of agricultural land developed using modeling, big data, satellite imagery and machine learning to understand how much land is being used for different crops and what the likely yields are.
“This is big data meets agriculture in a very real way,” he told FeedNavigator. “It comes back to if you compare the USDA approach – and we have no criticism of that - it’s a very valid methodology that they’ve employed for a long time – but it’s a very different way of doing it compared to what we’re doing.”
“We’re essentially looking at every acre of corn in America every day, and using these big data processes to inform what the likely yield is across the nation,” he said
A story about Skretting developing a new grower shrimp feed for improved feed intake and growth resonated with our audience last month.
The fish feed arm of Nutreco launched the feed in Vietnam in September. Skretting claims the new diet achieves faster gut transit time, enables increased feed intake while retaining FCR, which in turn leads to improved growth. It will be introduced to other shrimp farming markets in the coming months, said the company.
We talked to Dr Matthew Owen, manager, warm water species nutrition, Skretting, to find out about the background to the development of the feed product, and the benefits it brings.
French mealworm derived feed protein producer, Ÿnsect, was chosen, in September, as one of France’s 40 most promising startups – the NEXT40 index, a list of companies deemed to have the strongest prospects for global growth. The story was our eight most popular article last month.
The NEXT40 index was developed by the French government's Department of Digital Affairs to facilitate the rise of French startups as global tech leaders. Companies must meet several criteria to be included in the index; they have to demonstrate significant fundraising and business growth.
Ÿnsect said it met and exceeded the full range of NEXT40 selection criteria, particularly on the fundraising side, with it generating $125m in a Series C funding earlier round this year.
A piece about how researchers in the UK are testing the effectiveness of a feed premix in sea lice control had readers clicking.
We reported on how the study, backed to the tune of £300K (US$373.5K) and involving researchers from the Institute of Aquaculture (IoA) at the University of Stirling, Scotland and a UK animal feed manufacturer, is aiming to explore how certain feed ingredients can reduce infections in farmed fish.
The IoA is collaborating with the Devon-based feed producer, Denis Brinicombe Group, which manufactures feed products for the ruminant and equestrian markets, on what will be a three-year long project.
Sea lice in salmon is the central focus. The partners will test the theory that modified aquaculture diets that include Brinicombe’s patented bioactive compound premix will have a positive impact on the health of farmed fish by reducing infection rates, survival and reproductive output of sea lice.
Out tenth most read story last month was one about Beyond Pesticides, a US not for profit group, launching an investigative arm to track fraudulently labeled feed grains, products and foods.
Its investigative unit, OrganicEye, will address what Beyond Pesticides considers the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) “systemic failure” to safeguard players in the US organic industry.
The agency provides a resource for members of the US organic farming community and their customers, said Mark Kastel, director and co-founder with OrganicEye, who has also acted as an independent fraud investigator within the organic production system and marketplace.
“We’re not private eyes, we’re public eyes – we’re operating as investigators, as a public interest group. So whenever fraud occurs, or the USDA misinterprets the spirit and letter of the law to favor industrial agriculture, it places ethical industry participants at a competitive disadvantage, and we won’t stand for that.”
"We hope to inform organic stakeholders – the people who own this industry – what’s really going on and hold the commercial players, the government and the certifiers who aren’t doing their job accountable,” he told us.
