Agro-economists: priorities for animal nutrition

Representing North and South America, Asia and Europe, the experts met at the InnoVision 2007 meeting in Noordwijk-aan-Zee, the Netherlands, organised by Dutch animal feed company Nutreco, to discuss the balance of resources for feed, food and fuel from an animal nutrition perspective.


Main challenge
Together, they defined the main challenge for the global animal nutrition industry as providing cost-efficient conversion of low value raw materials to high value protein in a sustainable way.


This must be achieved at a time when there is increasing tension in demand for agricultural products resulting from the growing world population, rising standards of living and a surge in demand for energy from crops.


Priorities
The three priorities they set for research to enable the agricultural industry to meet the challenge were:


• Feedstuff and formulation technology to ensure the agricultural industry can provide animal food products at affordable prices


• Identification of new natural feed additives to improve feed digestion and contribute to animal health and welfare


• Nutrigenomics – optimising the nutrition of animals in relation to their genetic characteristics


Related websites:
• Nutreco
• Agri Vision


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