• Routinely monitor and develop a list of pathogens in a pig population, which is vital to the success of an antibiotic-free system.
• Identify the challenges affecting productivity and profitability on-farm, as well as aspects of housing, husbandry and management that may be causing issues.
• Re-evaluate biosecurity both internally and externally. Examine herd flow, cleanliness, transportation and employee traffic.
• Establish and implement an effective vaccination program with the veterinarian that supports herd health and safety.
• Build a nutritional platform in the pigs’ diet that includes technologies to reduce the risk of pathogens and improve immunity.
• Be ready to adapt. Reducing antibiotics or implementing an antibiotic-free program takes time. Observing how these changes impact the animals’ health and production is an important part of this process. Make sure there is room in the plan to make improvements.

The following is a preview of Aidan Connolly's post, which you can find on LinkedIn. 

Question 1: Why are antibiotics in animal feed in the first place?

Antibiotics have been good for the world. They have been instrumental in allowing humanity to enjoy a standard and quality of life unimagined prior to their discovery. Initially, antibiotics allowed us to control life-altering and fatal diseases in humans.

Secondarily, they have facilitated the development of a modern, safe and efficient agricultural system that produces food economically, affordably and plentifully for most of the 7 billion people on the planet. 

When farmers began putting antibiotics in the feed of animals in the 1950s they did so initially because it resulted in lower mortalities but quickly they also noted their animals grew faster, requiring less feed. Veterinarians later observed better intestinal health and less inflammation during autopsies and surmised that the improved animal performance was most likely due to the more efficient absorption of nutrients in the intestine of those animals.

Question 2: Where does resistance come from?

The simple definition of resistance is “the ability of microbes to resist the effect of antibiotic drugs” and the mechanisms by which bacteria become resistant and pass on that resistance to other bacteria are relatively well known. Bacteria adapt very quickly to the environment, so when antibiotics are used continuously, the bacteria they are meant to kill can adapt, survive and replicate making it extremely difficult to kill the remaining bacteria. Resistance can develop through selective pressure (that is, when antibiotics kill some but not all of a bacterial group), mutation and gene transfer. These three mechanisms can also combine, as when bacteria not only become resistant to antibiotics, but also start to pass that characteristic on to other bacteria present in the gut. 

There are many sources of resistance with examples in humans and animals, including the inappropriate use of drugs or inadequate diagnostics in hospitals or veterinarian situations, the use of antimicrobial soap in bathrooms, the use of zinc oxide or copper sulfate in the diets of animals, and the use of chlorine in water of humans and animals alike. Scientists have demonstrated that these and any substances that create pressure on a microbial population lead to changes similar to the passage of resistance. 

Overall, humans are the main source of resistance, due to the misuse of antibiotics, not using them for the time period recommended by their doctors, or not using the recommended dose. Hospitals and homes for the elderly have become hot spots of resistance, which puts older people, very young people and immune-comprised people who are the least capable of fighting off infection without antibiotics at the highest risk.

It is clear that antibiotic use in humans is not uniform. For example, looking at a map of the U.S., antibiotic misuse per 1000 people tends to be concentrated in the eastern part of the country rather than the west, with over-prescription particularly prevalent in the South and Midwest. Recent studies indicate that an average of 506 antibiotic prescriptions are administered per 1000 doctor visits, while experts concluded that only slightly more than half of these prescriptions were actually necessary or appropriate.

In animals, resistance works the same way, and the passage of resistance from animals to humans can occur through contact with live animals or environmental contamination. (In 2005, the CDDEP found that when antibiotics are fed to animals 90% go through urine and 75% were found in feces; more recently antibiotic resistant bacteria have been found in water systems, waste treatment and in dust carried by air.) It also seems to be possible for resistance to be passed through the consumption of meat, milk and eggs from contaminated animals (for example, a U.S. study found that 53% of grocery chicken contained antibiotic resistant E. coli). 

Farmers are often irritated that activists focus on antibiotics in animal food, when the majority of resistance come from human misuse/overuse/abuse, but the general public finds it easy to agree with Prince Charles (speaking to the Royal Society in London) when he said, “I find it difficult to understand how we can continue to allow most of the antibiotics used in farming, many of which are also used in human medicine, to be administered to healthy animals.”

Read the rest of Aidan Connolly's post, including the next five questions and answers, here. 

2016 has been a remarkable year thus far. This past month we welcomed more than 3,000 friends from 71 countries for an unbelievable week of idea-sharing and inspiration at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. We also grew the Alltech family through the acquisition of Keenan, a leading farming solutions manufacturer known particularly for their “Green Machine” and InTouch Technology.

Today it’s a delight to share further excitement as we welcome Coppens International, an innovative Dutch aquatic feed and nutrition company, to our family. READ the press release here. 

Coppens International is known around the world as a technical specialist that produces high-quality aquatic feeds. The Coppens International team works continuously to perfect their formulas and develop new feed to cater to market demands. They have drive, they are passionate and they care – all qualities we value here at Alltech. Coppens International’s innovative techniques provide us with a winning combination for delivering greater efficiency and profitability direct to our aquatic producers.

Together we will now offer a breakthrough development in the feed industry by providing a fish feed completely derived from a sustainable and traceable fish oil replacement.  With Coppens International, we complete the cycle from a sustainable source of microalgae, rich in DHA omega-3 fatty acid, through to fish feeds and into fish products. The production of our algae is based on yeast components from which the algae gain a number of critical nutrients to grow, produce the high fat content and, even more importantly, high levels of the DHA omega-3 fatty acid. This active ingredient, as in many of our other yeast-based products, ultimately improves animal and fish health, while providing DHA-rich, functional foods that deliver a wide range of well-known health benefits to consumers. Now there is a true marriage between a unique aquatic feed manufacturer and an animal health-focused algae production facility! In fact, our plant in Winchester, Kentucky is food-grade and approaching more than 20,000 tons annually, with capacity expected to triple by year-end.

Using Alltech’s primacy in science combined with Coppens International team of researchers, we believe we will be one of the first to completely remove fish meal and fish oil from feed. We will replace these with Alltech’s FOR PLUS, which is derived from algae, and produced in our dedicated algae facility in Kentucky. We will be able to guarantee our customers a source of DHA which is traceable, sustainable and without the contamination issues of fish products. 

Just like Alltech, Coppens International is passionate about customer-centered research. In fact, they have 17 hectares of ponds devoted to research and raising specialty fish such as aquarium fish.  With two dedicated extruders, the company’s products are shipped around the world, and their capacity will increase shortly with a third extruder in the coming months. In looking to the future, Dr. Karl Dawson, chief scientific officer at Alltech, said, “We will continue sharing results of the successful use of Alltech’s FOR PLUS in all animal and fish diets. We have already demonstrated some surprising benefits for production animals. At Alltech, we remain steadfastly focused on our ACE principle of being friendly to the Animal, the Consumer, and the Environment.”

By joining Alltech, Coppens International is achieving one of its long-held ambitions - the replacement of fish oil with Alltech algae technology. Given the unsustainable global supply of fish oil, this is a true leap forward for their aquaculture nutrition program.

In fact, did you know that we own one of the only fully-operational, large-scale algae production facilities in the world? At the Alltech Algae facility in Winchester, Kentucky, we have invested heavily to develop proprietary algal technology for application in aquaculture, pet and livestock nutrition. No longer a buzzword, algae are gaining attention for their application to the feed and food industries as a highly sustainable source of DHA omega-3, and Coppens International will now be leveraging our algal technology.

We see plenty of synergies that can occur with Coppens International. Fish farms will have improved direct access to the most cutting-edge, sustainable technologies relevant to today's aquaculture industry demands.

In April this year, we launched the Alltech Aquaculture Postgraduate Program, a joint research partnership with the world-renowned University of Stirling Institute of Aquaculture in Scotland, and we are also making great progress with Alltech Aquaculture in Kentucky. Again, why? We see the opportunities ahead within the exciting sector of aquaculture.

The aquaculture sector is experiencing tremendous growth worldwide. In fact, did you know that aquaculture is the fastest growing segment of the animal feed industry? According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, fish consumption now exceeds beef consumption per capita, and farmed fish now exceed wild caught. What an opportunity!

Together, Alltech and Coppens International will ensure that aquatic producers around the world can practice responsible and efficient aquaculture. Together, we will make a sustainable contribution to food production for a growing global population that demands the very best. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to work hand-in-hand on delivering aquaculture solutions.

Welcome to our family, Coppens International!

With only 12 percent of land on Earth suitable for crop farming, both water efficiency  and soil health are of equal importance. The world’s precious soil hosts more than a quarter of the planet’s biodiversity.

“However, as soils are continually treated with pesticides and fungicides, hundreds of ecosystems and billions of microbes are being destroyed,” said Robert Walker, global general manager for Alltech Crop Science, at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference.

This leads to imbalances that destroy crops, sometimes not just for a season, but for the foreseeable future.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 20 to 25 percent of soils worldwide have already been degraded through modern agriculture practices. In fact, an additional area the size of Austria is degraded each year.¹ The world’s growing population, with an increasing demand for food production, has brought new attention to soil degradation.

“Unless new approaches are adopted, the global amount of arable and productive land per person in 2050 will be only a quarter of the level that was available in 1960,” said Walker, citing the FAO report.

Time is of the essence in finding new solutions, as it takes 1,000 years for 3 centimeters of new topsoil to be generated.  Where can answers be found for application today? Walker sees opportunities in organic farming, precision agriculture and beneath our feet, in the soil itself. 

Answers rooted in the soil: Microbes at work

“Proper soil nutrition should be our first line of defense,” said Walker on the topic of saving the soil and helping producers increase their crop production.

“Only 2 percent of all microbes in soil have been identified. What if we were to harness the other unidentified 98 percent?”

Microbes can help support plant health in the following ways:

• Increasing nutrient availability
• Enhancing root growth
• Neutralizing toxic compounds in soils
• Providing disease suppression
• Increasing plant immunity and boosting resistance against environmental extremes

One success story can be found in Costa Rica, where microbial technology is being successfully deployed to help banana producers fight disease and reduce the use of synthetic fungicides.

By incorporating new microbial technologies with soil management methods such as conservation tillage, producers have ONE big opportunity, Walker predicts. While synthetic chemistries have helped with feeding a growing population, weed resistance and limited productivity challenge current systems.

“It’s time to develop a new system of agriculture based on natural principles for crop and soil health and productivity,” said Walker.

An additional benefit of integrating microbial technology with conservation tillage applies to water use.

“With each 1 percent increase in organic matter, there is the ability for the soil to hold an additional 20,000 gallons of water per acre,” concluded Walker.

He encourages producers worldwide to adopt ONE new technology to conserve soil vitality.

To read more about soil, which is “our silent ally in food production” according to the United Nations, and Alltech’s microbial research, click here.

Source 1: Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, “Soil Atlas 2015.”

Robbie Walker was a presenter at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks from ONE will be made available on the Alltech Idea Lab by mid-June 2016. For access, click on the button below.

Income over feed cost (IOFC) can be a critical metric when evaluating a farm’s profitability and the sustainability of a current or proposed feeding program. During times of low milk prices, understanding your costs can be crucial to a farm, effectively riding the wave to the next high or low in the milk price storm.

Understanding IOFC

IOFC is defined as the portion of income from milk sold that remains after paying for purchased and farm-raised feed used to produce the milk.  

Information you need to calculate IOFC:

1. Milk price average per month
2. Total milk produced per day over the period of a month
3. Number of cows as it relates to production during that month
4. Inputs (amount of feed used)
5. Cost per ton of feed input (to purchase or produce)

To illustrate with an example, we will use a 142-cow milking Holstein herd in Kentucky.

• Income
  • Milk price:  $15.50
  • Number of cows: 142
  • Average pounds produced per cow per day: 78 pounds
    • Income per cow per day: $15.50 * .78 = $12.09
• Feed costs:

IOFC = $12.09 (income) - $5.53 (feed costs) = $6.56 per cow per day

Feed to succeed

When evaluating your ration to maximize IOFC, there are potential changes that carry minimal to no cost but can have an impact on your bottom line.

1. Slow release non-protein nitrogen provides a concentrated source of ruminally-degradable protein. Due to the concentrated nature of the protein, a small amount provides the same nutrients as a larger amount of vegetable protein, allowing for reformulation potential to reduce feed costs. Optigen®, a product from Alltech, was utilized by Penn State in an example of IOFC calculation. You can read more here: http://www.dairyherd.com/news/industry/production-financials-cash-flow-mechanics.
2. Yeast: Feeding yeast has been widely researched and has shown to improve dry matter intake, stabilize rumen pH, maximize nutrient release and reduce overall feed costs.
3. Enzymes: Looking at the use of enzyme technology can be another avenue to maximize IOFC.  When feeding high-forage or high-corn diets, adding an enzyme that helps break down the key components in these diets, such as starch or plant fiber, can increase feed efficiency and improve milk production.

Using tools such as IOFC can lead to opportunities to gain a better understanding of your ration, to improve profitability of your herd and to understand your spending power when it comes to other on-farm purchases.  

Mission-driven companies are often viewed as places where employees feel their work contributes to a higher purpose. When it comes to “mission-driven agriculture,” the industry is now responding to consumers who are looking for their food/diet to serve a higher purpose, said Rebecca Noble, Alltech Crop Science business development executive.

“Consumers’ perceptions of their diet have changed,” added Noble. “Food and nutrition are now seen as a gateway to health. It’s not just about weight loss and body image.”

A 2015 Nielsen report asserts that, globally, 80 percent of consumers are choosing foods for their diet as a means to forestall health issues and medical conditions. Consumers are also increasingly factoring agricultural production methods into their food purchasing decisions.

“Their decisions are now based on beliefs and convictions that go far beyond cost and convenience,” said Noble. “Awareness about the social and environmental impacts of farming is also fueling their decisions.”

Agriculture is being called upon to reinvent itself and further propel human advancement.

“The industry is now being transformed into a mission-driven industry,” she said.

Who is in the driver seat?

Perhaps in no other industry are the needs and desires of consumers being felt so profoundly than in food production, commented Noble.

“Mission-driven consumers are flooding the marketplace with greater capacity and purchasing power each year,” she said.  

Believing that the right food choices will lead to better health, 25 percent of consumers are willing to pay a premium for products, with the following five categories being key:

• All natural
• GMO-free
• Low/no fat
• Gluten-free
• Organic

The organic category continues to be the largest segment for attracting premiums in store aisles. In 2014, organic sales in the U.S. reached $40 billion, and global sales are projected to reach $1 trillion by next year.

Grocery stores are reporting that new food perceptions are especially concentrated in younger generations, with millennials driving the organic category. Adding to the momentum is Generation Z, aged 20 and under, as many of them head to college and make independent food purchases for the first time.

With growing demand, retailers are working creatively to keep their organic supplies steady. One big box store is even lending money to farmers to help them secure land for organic production.

What’s ahead on the journey?

Sales of foods grown locally could eclipse sales of organic food. Grocery chains and big box retailers are aggressively expanding and marketing their locally grown offerings for sale. Retailers are finding themselves reinventing their stores to provide high quality, locally produced food that is also affordable.

Demands on conventional farming are the next frontier, as consumers continue to want to know more about the way in which their food is produced, explained Noble.

 “Mission-driven producers are working carefully to not just change their agricultural practices to respond to consumer demands,” she said. “They are helping to tell the story — creating new narratives — surrounding food production.”

Likewise, some large retailers are creating consumer-facing campaigns. They are educating shoppers beyond health and wellness issues to producers’ management and land practices, water use, farm worker safety and energy consumption.

Within a mission-driven agriculture system, Noble described symbiotic relationships forming between both retailers and consumers and retailers and producers.

“Consumers are no longer just simply eating,” said Noble. “Retailers are no longer simply just buying and selling. Producers are no longer being asked to just simply produce. Things have been put into overdrive.”

Metaphorically, we’re all in the car together, concluded Noble. This will call for true collaboration, especially between retailers and producers, to realistically and systematically take us to the next frontier.

 “Consumers and retailers are influencing each other, and more and more producers are taking their business, their mission and how they are perceived in the market into their own hands,” Noble concluded.

Finally, market competition will play a key role in keeping mission-driven dreams balanced, attainable and accessible for all.

Rebecca Noble was a presenter at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks from ONE will be made available on the Alltech Idea Lab by mid-June 2016. For access, click on the button below.

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