[DUBLIN, Ireland] – A total of 183 startups from 38 countries applied to be a part of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, a late-stage, agri-tech accelerator run by Alltech and Dogpatch Labs. The accelerator will commence with 10 startups that have been chosen to take part in a mentorship program for agri-business innovators with a proven technology that is ready for market. The 10 successful applicants will work with Alltech and Dogpatch Labs to accelerate their business development through Alltech and its global network. The startups hail from Australia, Canada, China, Ireland and the U.S. and have already collectively raised more than $30 million in funding. Participants include MagGrow from Ireland, AgriWebb from Australia and Tevatronic. Full details on the selected startups are below.

The accelerator is a 15-week, mentorship-driven program aimed at collaborative learning and seeking new business and/or partnership opportunities. The program will culminate with the startups presenting on the main stage at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, May 21–24, 2017, where more than 3,000 attendees from nearly 80 countries around the world will converge. This high-profile showcase will afford the startups the opportunity to present to future customers as well as investors and potential collaborators.

Startup participants will receive access to Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech, and the senior management of Alltech, a global animal health and nutrition company with a presence in more than 120 countries. In addition, participants will receive free space for three months in Ireland’s leading startup hub, Dogpatch Labs, located in the heart of the Dublin Docklands, a €15,000 cash fund and mentoring covering a range of areas, from product development to strategy and international expansion. At the end of the program, the startups will pitch to the accelerator for business partners and investors. Additional benefits include software perks worth more than €300,000 from companies such as Google, Facebook, Softlayer and Amazon.

“We had a great selection week in Dublin, and I’m really impressed with the startups’ ideas, their engagement and the talent,” said Aidan Connolly, chief innovation officer at Alltech. “We were especially looking for emerging technologies in agri-tech, such as drones, sensors, the internet of things and artificial intelligence, and I’m excited to see those are all represented within the 10 companies that were chosen.”

The majority of the startup applicants are late-stage startups that have raised initial investment (known as the “seed round”) and would now benefit from advice and support from Alltech to expand internationally. Startups were especially attracted to this accelerator due to the fact that Alltech is one of the few truly global agricultural companies positioned to assist in opening doors and advising on routes to market and global market access in the more than 120 countries where it is present.

“We’re excited about working with these world-class accelerator applicants from across the world and assisting them on their internationalisation strategy,” said Patrick Walsh, managing director of Dogpatch Labs. “This program will provide a unique environment for the accelerator applicants to drive sales and secure investment, and it underlines Dogpatch Lab’s ability to provide mentoring and resources for founders due to our unique connection to the startup ecosystem.”

The agriculture industry is beginning to be disrupted by new technologies. Agri-tech investment is growing at an exponential rate, with $9.65 billion invested in agri-tech startups since 2013 and $2 billion invested in the first half of 2016 alone. A clear route to market remains a challenge in the industry, and this program seeks to accelerate startups’ access to this global market, with a comprehensive package of supports that helps them navigate the challenge of scaling their operations to service large corporate customers.

The accelerator applicants will arrive for their first core phase in Dublin on Feb. 20, 2017, and will fly in for various core phases throughout the program. They will wrap up the program with a European demo day at Dogpatch Labs in Dublin and later will fly out to Kentucky to pitch their ideas at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference.

For more information on The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, please visit Alltech.com/Accelerator or dogpatchlabs.com/alltech-accelerator, and stay connected through Twitter and Facebook.

Please find a full list of the successful 2017 applicants below:

MagGrow (Ireland)

Using a magnetic spraying system reduces drift by more than 80 percent and delivers superior coverage by enabling a spray of finer droplets, a key challenge for conventional spraying systems.

Moocall (Ireland)

A wearable technology that accurately predicts when a cow will give birth and communicates to the farmer via text message.

eFishery (Indonesia)

A fish feeder that automatically senses the appetite of fish and adjusts the amount of feed accordingly.

SkySquirrel (Canada)

A crop-analytics company that develops drone-based technology for monitoring crop health, with a primary focus on improving crop yields and reducing costs at commercial vineyards.

Agriwebb (Australia)

A mobile herd and farm management application developed for cattle, sheep and wool producers, with an online trading platform.

Greengage (UK)

Greengage provides market leading LED lamps to serve the farming industry with a simple and highly effective solution you can rely on.

Hargol FoodTech

An optimized method and technology that enables producers to grow large quantities of grasshoppers quickly in captivity.

Tevatronic

A technological solution enabling crops to be grown autonomously from an irrigation and a fertilisation aspect. The system is capable of deciding when and how much to irrigate, and it executes the irrigation decisions autonomously.

Agrilyst (USA)

Helping greenhouse operators run their operations more efficiently by pulling in data from sensors in the greenhouse and information about crop yields and other metrics.

Alesca Life (China)

A concept called farming-as-a-service was developed that allows scalable, localised food production for commercial and retail customers.

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] – Aquaculture is the fastest-growing segment in the feed industry. According to the 2017 Alltech Global Feed Survey, the aquaculture industry experienced a 12 percent increase in feed production in 2016 to 39.9 million metric tons. Asia maintained its volume and accounts for approximately three-quarters of global production per Alltech’s 2016 Aquaculture Survey.

For many who are closely watching the aquaculture sector, this growth comes as no surprise. However, it presents a new set of challenges.

“‘The Fish to 2030: Prospects for Fisheries and Aquaculture’ report produced by the World Bank states that the projected growth in fed aquaculture over the 2000–2030 period, equivalent to an annual average growth rate of 3.9 percent per year, is much faster than the projected growth in fish oil use in aquaculture, which has an average annual growth rate of 1.7 percent,” said Dr. Keith Filer, project manager for aquaculture research at Alltech. “This is why Alltech is committed to providing a sustainable alternative to fish oil with our algae.”

Alltech has been improving aquaculture performance through nutrition for 13 years, but recent developments have significantly strengthened the company’s efforts:

• Acquired in 2010, Alltech’s algae plant in Kentucky, USA, is one of the largest commercial production sites in the world for algae. This traceable algae can provide a sustainable DHA omega-3 source as an alternative to fish oil. In December 2016, Alltech received registration from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) for two of its algae products, ForPlus and All-G Rich™, and the company expects more regulatory bodies internationally to follow the CFIA’s decision.
• Coppens International, an innovative Dutch aquatic feed and nutrition company, was acquired in 2016. This acquisition has enabled both companies to benefit from each other’s expertise, including the use of Alltech’s sustainable algal DHA source, ForPlus, to replace fish oil. Coppens has gained compliance with the Aquaculture Stewardship Council within the last year and has introduced a new range of feeds incorporating Alltech’s sustainable alternatives to fish oil and inorganic trace minerals in order to provide availability of these nutrients for optimum fish health and performance. On the horizon for Coppens in 2017 is a $1 million renovation of the Coppens Research Centre, which will double its capacity while increasing the number of aqua species that can be included in this extensive research program.
• Alltech has partnered with several universities and a research institute through formal research alliances to demonstrate the impact of Alltech’s algae solutions in a variety of species:
• Alltech-Kochi University Research Alliance (Japan) in Japanese yellowtail
• Alltech-Ocean University of China Research Alliance (China) in turbot and shrimp
• Alltech-Federal University of Santa Catarina Research Alliance (Brazil) in tilapia
• Alltech-Kentucky State University (U.S.) Research Alliance in largemouth bass and shrimp
• Alltech-Nofima (Norway) Research Alliance in Atlantic salmon

Filer noted that the research alliances’ findings to date “have observed that All-G Rich could replace fish oil in the diets of marine, freshwater and salmonid species while maintaining performance as well as DHA levels in the fillet.”

“What if we had a sustainable DHA source that was traceable and provided health benefits to fish?” said Dr. Jorge Arias, Alltech’s global director for aquaculture. “We believe we have a real solution in our algae that will reduce reliance on fish oil while increasing the amount of DHA available to farmed fish and, ultimately, to consumers.”

Visit Alltech’s team at Booth 721 at Aquaculture America, held Feb. 19–22, 2017, in San Antonio, Texas, to discuss how Alltech’s aquaculture nutrition technologies, including algae products, improve performance and profitability. Alltech will host Kentucky Ale® Happy Hours at Booth 721 on Monday, Feb. 20 from 4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m., and on Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 5 p.m.–6 p.m.

Additionally, Dr. Aoife Lyons, director of educational initiatives and engagement for Alltech, will be a plenary speaker at Aquaculture America, where she will share how communication is essential to “Forging New Frontiers” in aquaculture.

For more information on Alltech’s sustainable solutions for aquaculture, visit Alltech.com/aquaculture. To stay up to date with Alltech at Aquaculture America, visit http://go.alltech.com/aquaculture-america.

[ATLANTA] – Dr. Mark Lyons, global vice president and head of Greater China for Alltech, presented “Understanding China: How the second-largest poultry market is changing the world,” addressing the Alltech ACE principle of developing solutions that are safe for the Animal, Consumer and Environment, to an audience of 250 people during the Alltech Annual Breakfast Meeting at the International Production & Processing Expo.

There has been a great urban shift of 300 million people within the economic power player, resulting in 188 cities in China larger than Chicago. Additionally, China has a rising middle class that is young, urban and globally minded.

“China is different and is not for the faint-hearted,” said Lyons. “They rapidly change and want transparency, and if you’re going to do business in China, then you need to be there, and you need to commit to being Chinese.”

China is going through a period of transition in many areas, including agriculture. Its industry has been very fragmented, but it is evolving toward more integration and segmentation. Results from the 2017 Alltech Global Feed Survey showed that China continues to be the largest feed-producing country but is producing that feed with fewer and fewer mills. The consolidation has been vast, with a report this year of a nearly 30 percent decline in the country’s number of feed mills.

China is home to 20 percent of the world’s 60 billion poultry birds, including 8.8 billion broilers, 1.2 billion layers/breeders and 4 billion waterfowl. Currently, China produces 26 percent of the world’s poultry meat, and studies show that both consumption and production of poultry will continue to increase in China, and worldwide, over the next 10 years. China is also the world leader in egg production, producing almost six times more than the United States, which is in second place.

Trends in China

• Poultry and egg industry moving toward integration
• Consumer awareness of environmental pollution growing and creating pressure at the farm level
• Antibiotic-free is a growing trend as testing and legislation increase
• Pressure from the cost of feed materials
• Desire for high-quality poultry products

Challenges

• High feed costs; up to two times the cost of international prices
• Flat consumption, as chicken meat is considered an inferior protein to pork, seafood and beef
• Falling exports, as China’s competitiveness is decreasing against Brazil and Thailand to its top export market, Japan
• Disease challenges, with avian influenza outbreaks as a constant reminder to consumers, which harms the image of poultry meat

“We have been talking about the power of the new consumer, which we are calling the prosumer,” said Lyons. “I believe there are more prosumers in China than any other market in the world today.”

Rather than simply consuming products, these prosumers are proactively exhibiting their beliefs, ethics, standards and aspirations through their purchases. Prosumers are product and brand advocates who now significantly affect the success or failure of companies, products and brands through their involvement on social media outlets, and food producers and farmers need to pay attention to their demands.

As consumer awareness of environmental pollution has grown, it has created pressure at the farm level. The Chinese government has put a focus on livestock pollution control regulations, new environmental laws, animal husbandry laws, standardized scale farming, water regulations and animal disease control laws.

Alltech China is hosting an environmental meeting from March 7–9. The event will focus on overcoming environmental challenges and finding opportunities in the new green economy. For more information or to attend the meeting, contact Apple Zhang, marketing manager for Alltech China (azhang@alltech.com).

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] – One idea, from one person, can disrupt the status quo to create opportunity — or challenges — for many. Will agriculture be a positive disrupter, creating opportunity? Or will the industry be caught playing defense to disruption?

ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17) will inspire farmers, ranchers, producers, suppliers and influencers in every species and segment across production agriculture to create disruption and be prepared to harness its potential — or risk being rendered irrelevant.

ONE17 will be held May 21–24 in Lexington, Kentucky, and promises to be an experience jam-packed with ideas, innovations and solutions for the agriculture industry. The annual international conference, now in its 34th year, draws more than 3,000 attendees from over 70 countries.

“Our goal is to help our partners in agriculture put their ideas into action,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, Alltech’s founder and president. “If you want to activate your vision, gain a more global perspective and connect with the most innovative minds in agriculture, ONE17 is the only place to be.”

With topics covering the growing global economy, disruptive consumer trends and the constant stream of new technologies, ONE17 will set the stage for forward-thinking discussions about the future of food production.

General sessions with headline keynote speakers will inspire business solutions and innovation, while subject- and species-specific focus sessions will give producers a chance to learn and participate in discussions relevant to their respective fields. Breakouts on crop science, beef, dairy, swine, poultry and aquaculture — as well as topical sessions on finance, food issues and emerging markets — provide an opportunity for every corner of production agriculture to engage disruption at the ONE17 conference.

“ONE is meant to encourage, empower and, most importantly, challenge us,” said Dr. Lyons. “We want individuals to leave feeling like they were part of a life-changing development for the industry and feel empowered to implement solutions back home.”

As Kentucky Living magazine said of ONE16, “You leave believing anything is possible, that with commitment, teamwork, leadership and vision, your one idea can change the world.”

For more information on ONE17, and to register for the conference, visit: one.alltech.com. Join the conversation on Twitter by using #ONE17.

View the promotional video for ONE17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRdoYgkcm5c

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] – Farmers have a rich history of adapting to changing landscapes and innovating to nourish the world. While dealing with whatever challenges the day (and the weather) might bring, they also look ahead to build a future for their farm by implementing new management practices, technologies and nutrition programs as well as training the next generation.

Alltech is calling all farmers, producers and ranchers to share their stories about how they are ensuring the future of their farm. By creating a one- to two-minute video describing what they are doing for their farm’s future and sharing their farm’s story, farmers have the opportunity to win a trip to ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, held in Lexington, Kentucky, May 21–24, 2017.

Videos must be submitted online by April 3, 2017, at 9:00 a.m. EST. To enter a “My Farm. My Future.” video as well as read the full contest details, including rules and regulations specific to the participating countries, please visit http://one.alltech.com/my-farm-my-future.

Alltech will select the finalists and post their videos on Alltech’s Facebook page (Facebook.com/AlltechNaturally). Voting will open to the public starting April 3, 2017, at 3:00 p.m. EST and will close April 10, 2017, at 12:00 p.m. EST. The highest number of Facebook likes will determine the winners.

Registration is open now for ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, held in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, from May 21–24. The annual international conference draws more than 3,000 attendees from more than 70 countries to network and discuss world-changing ideas. For more information or to register, visit one.alltech.com. Join the conversation online with #ONEBigIdea17.

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] – In an effort to improve soil quality and environmental protection in China, various key players from soil, fertilizer and livestock industries formed the Soil and Fertilizer Alliance of China (SFAC) in February 2016.

Alltech, guided by its founding ACE principle of positively benefiting the animal, the consumer and the environment, has joined the SFAC. Dr. Mark Lyons, Alltech’s global vice president and head of Greater China, has been named SFAC vice president.

“Alltech and the SFAC share a common goal to integrate livestock feeding and crop planting industries more efficiently and to work together toward a more sustainable future,” said Dr. Lyons.

The SFAC aims to fulfil the needs and promote the sustainable development of Chinese agriculture. It strives to improve the quality of Chinese soil and contribute to food security and modern agricultural development while being ecologically sustainable. Alltech is one of the top five animal health companies in the world, with a growing crop science business sector.

The Chinese government has put an increasing focus on the environment in recent years, with a particularly close look at agricultural practices. While traditional concerns such as proximity to water and large populations, as well as biochemical oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand levels, have been cited as reasons for farm closures, issues related to high levels of minerals and soil quality impact factors are now being examined. The Environmental Tax Law was approved at the end of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee meeting in December 2016, and minerals (e.g., copper and zinc) and heavy metal (e.g., arsenic) are listed in the Environmental Tax Law for scale livestock farms. Alltech’s proprietary mineral technology Bioplex® is being utilized in China to reduce levels of minerals and other polluting materials in manure, thus reducing environmental impact.

“Alltech has solutions to help livestock farms reduce pollution in animal manure, compost manure to a higher quality of organic fertilizer, and improve crop and animal health and performance by adding nutritional value more naturally through our research-based technologies,” said Dr. Lyons.

Alltech China is hosting an environmental meeting from March 7–9. The event will focus on overcoming environmental challenges and finding opportunities in the new green economy. For more information or to attend the meeting, contact Apple Zhang, marketing manager for Alltech China (azhang@alltech.com).