The first Feed Ingredients and Additives Asia Pacific (FIAAP) conference will hold strong interest for the aquafeed sector, with several papers dealing specifically with aquafeed-related issues.
"All over the world we face increasing challenges to support the growth of aquaculture", said Colin Mair of Cormal Technology Ltd., U.K."One of these is the supply of the ingredients that provide our base protein and lipid requirements".
The environment we work in becomes increasingly challenging and we are faced with increasing demands for ‘natural’, ‘sustainable’, ‘ethical’ and ‘organic’ products. These demands in turn are driving us to source naturally derived ingredients with, it is hoped, an optimized delivery of nutritional performance plus added health benefits. It will be increasingly important to source ingredients that deliver the benefits of immune system stimulation, suppress auto-immune response, act as anti-bacterial and anti-viral agents, prevent or reduce cancers, deliver organically linked metals and pigments, and yet be sustainable, ethical and not create manufacturing problems. His presentation will look at some of these novel ingredients, at the claims made for them and at the processing issues that may result from their inclusion in diets.
Degussa Feed Additives has during the last years analysed a large number of fish meal samples from India and South America to give a better insight into the content of the first limiting amino acids. Huge differences in crude protein content as well as in the amino acid profile was found."It is evident that the content differs a lot and it is also clear that the amino acid content is not a constant ratio of crude protein", says Torben Madsen, Regional Technical Service Manager, Degussa (SEA) Pte. Ltd.
"Thus, if a constant factor for the amino acid content in crude protein is used the amino acid will in many cases be either above or below the expected level".
The variation in fish meal will of course also be reflected in the feed and the precise need for supplementation of the first limiting amino acids to meet the targets become more uncertain. Thus, as a consequence the needed safety margin to secure that the target is always met will increase. Delegates will learn how the results in this study clearly show that it is not enough only to look at the raw protein content. The focus should in stead be on the real content of amino acids in order to have the best information for the purchase decisions and feed optimization. However, this applies not only for fishmeal but also the other raw materials in the feed diet.
Protein and amino acids (AA) digestibility of poultry by-product meal (PBM), meat and bone meal (MBM), meal meal (MM), hydrolyzed feather meal (FeM), enzyme treated feather meal (ETFeM), blood meal (BM), and red blood cells (BC) measured from several commercially important fish and shrimp will be presented by Dr. Yu Yu, National Renderers Association, Inc., Hong Kong. The respective digestible protein and AA content from these protein meals will be compared for matching the requirements of the aquatic species and the cost-effectiveness measured from growth performance and feed utilization. Special emphasis will be on high-value carnivorous fish and shrimp.
Ingredient market intelligence is important to all sectors, especially in the current environment and the conference will provide insights into grain and soybean markets, fishmeal and oil and functional ingredients. Dr. Bob Swick, ASA-IM, Singapore will report on grain and oilseed trends and Scott Herbert, Omega Protein, will discuss marine oils and proteins.
Consulting Analyst with Frost & Sullivan, Sri Ganesh, will present a market overview of feed additives in Southeast Asia in terms of market size, unit value and volume. Pricing trends and the factors involved in influencing the prices of feed additives will also be discussed. The research is presented into several segmentations which includes feed amino acids, concentrating on methionine, lysine and tryptophan; feed acidifiers, and feed enzymes (non-starch polysaccharides and phytase).
Other topics of general interest to the feed industry but also of direct relevance to aquafeed include bacterial contamination of feed and feed ingredients: Dr Adam Smith, Anitox Ltd., will examine the prevalence of bacteria in animal feedingstuffs and their significance in the safety of the food chain, animal health and performance, while Mathieu Cortyl, Impextraco NV, will examine the problems and solutions associated with mycotoxin contamination in animal nutrition. Recent research indicates that the biotransformation of mycotoxins, using enzymatic preparations, gives promising results.
Some enzymes can transform the structure of mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol or zearalenone, which are very difficult to bind efficiently. The products obtained from the reaction are less toxic compounds. "The application of such enzymatic transformations to the feed sector gives new opportunities because enzymes can have a specific action and their reaction, compared to binding, is not reversible", he said.
Because of the stong aquafeed content of this conference, delegates to Aquafeed Horizons Asia, can register for both conferences at a special rate.The FIAAP Conference takes place March 5, 2008 and Aquafeed Horizons on the following day, March 6, 2008, both at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand. These conferences will be held during VIctam Asia 2008 and the first feed ingredient conference, for the region, FIAAP '08.
You are strongly advised to reserve your place now. More information about the conferences and registration details are available from the conference websites: Aquafeed Horizons: www.aquafeed.info; FIAAP Conference: www.feedconferences.com.
