Feed Technologies for Sustainable Animal Production

Pashu Sandesh, 10th June 2020

Danveer Singh, Monika Karnani, Sheela Choudhary, Manju

With an increase in the human population and thus in urbanization, there arose a need for sustainable feed technology, which can fulfil the increased demand with less space consumption. Moreover, the sector became more organized, and there was an emphasis on efficient and more productive advancement in the field of feed technology. A nutritionally balanced diet and a safe end-product became vital while developing newer technological advances.

Feed Technology history and its evolution: 

In the 19th century, comparative measures such as ‘hay value’ and ‘proximate analysis system’ were developed in Germany to analyse the nutritional value of the animal feed. During the early years, the feed mills were used to be established for human grain; the by-products and leftovers were given to livestock. First dedicated commercial production was started for Horses and Mules, which were majorly used for transportation and wars. 

In the 20th century, technology started to become advanced, and pellet-based feed gained popularity. In mid of the century, complex formulation came into the picture with the advent of synthetic vitamins and antibiotics. In the late 1900s, many organized were founded globally to maintain standards and safety of the feed produced. In 1987, the International Feed Industry Federation was founded in Luxembourg, which helps establish high standards of safety and quality of animal feed by collaborating with various other organizations.

In the modern era, there is a lot of focus on computers and automation, which has helped reducing cost, maintaining consistency and standards, and better safety measures. The feed industry has started adopting it but can better utilize the modern-day technologies.

Sustainability – Importance and Adoption in the Feed Industry:

Sustainability is the ability to meet present demands without impacting the environment and maintain the same in the future. Emission of greenhouse gas and environmental impacts of animal feed production is being considered for sustainable production.

End-products have become a vital criterion for the firms to select technologies and methods as consumers have become more aware while consuming meat, eggs, milk. With the advent of the internet, information flow and availability have made the consumers aware and conscious, which has motivated companies to focus on quality and safety.

As the firms are shifting towards more advanced technologies for nutrient utilization and controlling digestion, the importance of traditional ways of formulating feeds based on compositional analyses will become insignificant in defining feed formulation. Collection and interpretation of information about all aspects of the food chain, coupled with this, can set a new level of proactive precision feeding. It will result in improved efficiency, better maintenance of animals, and more sustainable production.

The sustainability of animal feed can be analysed and adopted in the below dimensions: 

• Planet dimension:
• Main feature: protection of the environment and natural resources
• Should minimize water and air pollution
• Should not lead to land degradation or deforestation
• Use locally available feed resources
• People dimension:
• Main feature: socio-culturally acceptable and beneficial 
• Avoid exacerbation of unfavourable legal processes means it should be ethical. (e.g. land grab)
• Should not compete with human food
• Profit dimension:
• Main feature: promotion of economic growth
• Environmental costs should be fully reflected in the production cost.
• Enhance benefit: cost ratio for all stakeholders from the livestock sector; and Not enhance volatility in the price of feed ingredients
• Other elements:
• Re-use food waste in animal diets
• Give incentives to promote the production
• Should not use food grains in monogastric diets and ruminant diets

(Note: the change proposed is towards decreasing grains in animal diets, more so in ruminant diets)

Developments in Feed Technology:

• Nanotechnology:
• The application of nanotechnology in animal production is new, as production in the livestock industry has been using antibiotics as growth promoters.
• Further analysis is needed to make sure whether antibiotics in feed can be replaced entirely by nano-antimicrobials.
• As an alternative, Probiotics and Prebiotics can also be employed
• GMOs: 
• The development and adoption of biotechnological applications have been occurring like- the feeding of genetically modified plants and the use of in-feed additives, e.g., antibiotics.
• Solid-state fermentation (SSF):
• It is an ancient technology, when combined with newer techniques, can be used for growing enzymes directly on feedstuff.
• It includes growing of a specific strain of Aspergillus fungi directly on the feed that gives a substrate-specific array of enzymes (Custom Enzyme Cocktail) that aid in the digestion of fibre and other nutrients to the degree that has never been achieved with traditional batch fermentation methods. 
• Hydroponics farming:
• It is a scientific technology of growing plants or crops in water without any soil. Water is fortified with well-balanced nutrients necessary for plant growth and better yield.
• It takes off the pressure of land, saves water and labour cost, round the year production, less time to grow green fodder, e.g., barley, oat, maize, sorghum.
• Temperature range=15 to 33 ^*C, humidity=70 to 80%, time=7 to 8 days from seed germination to fully grown plant of 20 to 30 cm.
• RONOZYME-HiPhos:
• The latest or fittest phytases enzyme developed by a company DSM (DutchState Mines).
• It increases the amount of plant phosphorus available to the animal twice.
• By using it, we can decrease feed costs.
• Particle size reduction:
• It is achieved by cutting, crushing, shearing, impact grinding.
• It will increase the surface area of the grain and thus allows for greater interaction with digestive enzymes and digestibility and energy (ME) of feed increases.
• Improves handling and mixing properties of ingredients. 
• Increase pelleting efficiency and pellet quality.
• Pelleting, extrusion:
• Extrusion is a high temperature, short time feed technology, can change the nutrient content in a feed, reduce no. of antinutritional factors, improve hygienic conditions of feed and nutrient utilization efficiency.
• Pelleting change dusty and unpalatable feed material into more palatable, easy to handle large particles by application of optimum amounts of heat, moisture, pressure.
• The average size of the pellet is 3.9mm to 19mm though the maximum used pellet diameter is 6.25 to 9.4mm.
• Pelleting reduces wastage of feed by an animal, increases the density of feed, thus reducing storage space.
• Multi Carbohydrase Feed Enzyme Technique(the future of feed enzymes):
• Involves mix up of several unique enzyme strains that result from multiple activities and break down a larger proportion of undigested fraction of feed like corn, soybean meal, wheat, barley, oats, peas, and distillers dried grains with soluble(DDGS).
• Super enzymes contain both bacterial and fungal microbial strains that express xylanases, beta-glucans, cellulases, and other carbohydrase activities, different from other NSP(non-starch polysaccharide) enzymes.

• Complete feed block technology(CBF):
• Include forage, concentrate, and other essential supplements in appropriate combination to fulfil the nutrient requirements of animals
• An intimate mixture of processed ingredients that includes roughage and concentrate designed to be the only source of feed in compressed form.
• Various shapes – square, circular or quadrangular, depending on the kind of dye used in the machine.
• It makes dairy or livestock farming a profitable and viable business. Feeding crop residues in block form prove helpful for efficient utilization.
• New technologies of Silage making:
• The corn silage is the major source of energy in a ration, but the use of other ensiled crops recently, such as sugarcane and legumes increased.
• Two new ensiling techniques- pressed bag and the wrapped bag.
• Polyethene film is the most common method used to protect silage near the surface, but new plastic films-a co-extruded polyethene-polyamide film and a new polyvinyl alcohol film also have been used to seal corn silage.
• Many types of additives have been developed to improve the ensiling process, e.g., Lactobacillus buchneri an obligate heterotactic acid bacteria, improves the aerobic stability in corn silage.
• Azolla bio feed technology:
• The protein part of animal feed is the costliest part. There is a global deficiency of plant protein sources for feed production for livestock.
• Azolla is a floating fern having a blue, green algae endosymbiont in it, which fix atmospheric Nitrogen and helps to produce a variety of protein and protein compounds.
• Dr Kamalasanan Pillai at VKNARDEP in India developed the technology to produce livestock feed pellets from Azolla.
• The poor shelf life of Azolla was a major problem solved by Azolla based feed pellet technology. Azolla based pellet is cheaper by 10–15%. This improves the quantity and quality of milk and meat etc. by 5–10%. This technology is eco-friendly, renewable, economically feasible, and is a boon to the farming community.”
• Bypass protein technology:
• In the rumen, around 60-70% of dietary protein fed to animals degraded to ammonia, a part excreted in urine as urea. So a larger portion of protein from expensive cakes and meals is wasted.
• By giving suitable treatment to dietary protein meals, the degradation in the rumen can be suitably minimized. These protected feed meals are digested more efficiently in the small intestine, so extra protein will be available for milk production and quality.
• NDDB has standardized, commercialized bypass protein technology by using locally available protein meals e.g. sunflower meal, groundnut meal, guar meal and soybean meal, rapeseed meal.
• These are treated suitably to reduce their degradability in the rumen from 60-70% to 25-30%, in an airtight plant.
• Treated protein meal can be fed directly to animals as top feed @1 kg per animal per day or can be mixed in cattle feed @25%, and this feed can be fed @4-5 kg per animal per day, according to the level of milk production.
• Bio-based Feed additives: 
• e.g.: control of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Cattle Using Seaweed-based Feed
• Long-term and Consistent Positive Responses of Cattle Fed with Feed Additives is essential for Wide-scale Adoption
• Reprogramming Yeast for Animal-free Protein Production.
• Alternate feedstuff:
• Many of the alternative feeds vary widely in nutrient content. Producers must know the energy, protein, and major mineral levels of these feed to develop balanced, least-cost diets for livestock. Example:

• Medium Chain Fatty Acid technology (MCFA):
• Supplementation of feed with fat, especially polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA) in feed significantly reduces methane emissions in cattle.
• The effect of supplementary fats appears to be two-fold-
• Inhibition of the activity/viability of the cellulolytic bacteria in the rumen
• As a consumer/binder of hydrogen. 

Supplementary results in a decrease in the digestibility of cell wall carbohydrates, leading to decreased production of acetate and an increased propionate to acetate + butyrate ratio, which in turn reduces the production of hydrogen and thereby methane.

• New technologies in feed additive improvement:
• Lipid encapsulation
• Nano emulsification
• Bioavailability enhancement by ligand mediates transport (chelated mineral mixtures)
• Other Important techniques:
• NIR (Near Infrared) Technology
• Rapid in vitro digestion modelling system

Future Outlook:

Though Asia is the most significant contributor to the feed industry, the technology of western mills is far superior. The automation is expected to continue, and the efficiency can be achieved where a single person can handle the massive mill. There will be a focus on transparency, traceability, and safety of the process. 

As there is constant pressure from regulatory bodies to minimize the use of antibiotics, RWA (raised without antibiotics) is a significant area to focus on. NGPs (Natural Growth Promoters) are getting popularity because of their acceptance to the end-customers. 

In the future, the feed industry will be the focus on meeting consumer demands of safety and sustainability while becoming more efficient and productive. Blockchain, artificial intelligence, and data analytics are mere jargon for the feed industry, but with collaboration with giant technology companies, the industry can be data-driven and more transparent.

Animal Farming and Feed Technology in Rajasthan:

More than 70% of the rural population in Rajasthan is dependent on Agriculture and allied activities. Most of the land in Rajasthan is arid because of which agriculture is risky (especially in the western part). That is why Animal Farming plays a vital role in the livelihoods of the majority population. According to the State Livestock Policy Document, the animal husbandry sector contributes around 9.16% contribution to the GDP of Rajasthan. The industry has the potential to create employment in rural areas with less investment in comparison to the other sectors. 

Animals in the state are highly dependent on grass and crop residuals, which lack essential nutrients. Below is the graph of Feed and Fodder availability & Requirement in the state.

As we can see, feed is scarce in the state. Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur has been focusing on feed technology to overcome this scarcity. Significant technologies are multi-nutrient feed block, multi-nutrient feed mixture, total mixed pallet feed, complete fodder block, Lucerne meal block, mineral block so that their health and productivity can be maintained.

It has been established that a person with no technical background can quickly adopt the technology with the help of training programs. Such projects have been successfully implemented in the districts of Pali, Nagaur. 

Conclusion:

Compared to past practices used in the feed industry, firms are more focused on technology in the modern era. Automation is being implemented, which is increasing the productivity of the mills and bringing standardization. Increasing information availability and awareness among end-customers are acting as a driver for the industry to adopt sustainable practices. 

In the Asian region, especially in India, technology adoption is far less than the western counterparts. In Rajasthan, the industry is acting as a driver for producing employment among the population for semi-skilled or unskilled labour rather than being technology-intensive. Still, compared to past practices, even Rajasthan is adopting technology, and we can be optimistic about adopting better technologies by collaboration with tech giants and producing more scalable employment. 

Danveer Singh, Monika Karnani, Sheela Choudhary, Manju

Department of Animal Nutrition, PGIVER, Jaipur, Rajasthan, INDIA 302031