Understanding Your Challenges

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now considered one of the greatest threats to human health, and the role of livestock production remains under scrutiny. The challenge for producers is how to remove or reduce the use of antibiotics without compromising animal health or performance.

Implementation of effective biosecurity programs plays a key role. We already know that it makes a positive difference in farms where increasing biosecurity levels is largely associated with higher production rates and a drop in antimicrobial use and resistance. Now, the question is how to scale up this practice across the global livestock sector because it has become necessary to put measures in place to control and eradicate infections.

Health monitoring programs are a fundamental part of this strategy and will be essential in every operation – especially for the safe expansion of the poultry industry. We also anticipate a noticeable shift away from using therapeutic compounds to control enteric diseases and greater attention given to nutritional alternatives such as probiotics, essential oils, and betaine as a more sustainable way to support a healthy intestinal microbiota, and immune system.

Given that animal and human health are generally known to be intrinsically linked, consumers are increasingly concerned about the safety of including meat-based products in their diet. The challenge for all those involved with the food chain is to analyze existing or potential weak spots – and take appropriate and transparent action to reassure consumers.

Compliance with new production standards, and local and international regulations is mandatory, as is traceability in every livestock operation. Quality control systems must also be in place to meet (or exceed) regulatory, quality, and feed safety requirements set out by the appropriate national feed safety authorities – not only in the country of manufacture but also the shipping destination. The next step is to apply proven biotechnologies, such as probiotics and essential oils, in animal feed to improve the safety of the final products by reducing issues.

Stocking density, hygienic housing, bedding material, temperature, humidity, and air quality are some environmental conditions that can influence animal health and welfare. Optimizing physiological mechanisms against stress, for example, is generally considered essential, along with maintaining thermal comfort for the animals. Yet despite significant gains in this area, there is still room for improvement. With animal welfare known to be directly related to production outcomes, creating standard parameters and monitoring systems is now more important than ever.

Using products such as betaine, probiotics, and enzymes – alone or in combination will also be crucial to success, as they have been shown to influence welfare parameters. These parameters include heat stress impacts, litter quality, footpad lesions, and ammonia levels. Only then can the industry hope to successfully narrow the gap further between the genetic potential of the animals and their performance.

Greater nutritional knowledge and the application of effective feed solutions will continue to lessen the environmental impact of specific areas of livestock production – particularly the excretion of high nitrogen levels and phosphorus in manure.

The implementation and introduction of new assessment methods and technologies, such as enzymes like phytases and proteases, will help to manage the environmental footprint of each animal.

Growing global population, rising incomes, and urbanization in developing countries are projected to drive demand for animal protein. Although some of the growth in protein demand could be satisfied by the increasing popularity of alternative protein sources, such an increase would impact the amount of available land and feed resources available to animal producers.

Hence, animal producers will need to adopt new strategies to balance the anticipated increase in meat consumption and remain competitive despite social and environmental pressures, including the relative contribution of animal versus alternative protein sources to meet the growing demand.

More consideration will also need to be given to alternative ingredients and by-products. The industry will increasingly use enzymes to tackle antinutritional challenges. In addition, probiotics and enzymes will play a bigger role in enhancing gut health and improving feed efficiency, which helps reduce waste and the likelihood of food safety issues.

The application of biotechnology in animal feed to help producers achieve these goals will remain central to developments.

Genetic improvements and a reduction in market age mean that the perinatal period of broilers and piglets now corresponds to up to 50 percent of their lifecycle.

This means that effective nutritional and gut health management and tailored pre-starter diets are essential in this critical stage to ensure the proper water and feed supply. This method will help to maximize the number of young successfully raised per breeder per year.

Regulations will continue to evolve, not only in response to consumer concerns, but also in the dynamic development of the global livestock system. Compliance and traceability will be two of the most important requirements to succeed in this new environment, currently being reshaped by a changing legislative agenda.

The full implementation of Directive 1999/74/EU for laying hens, for example, is already impacting egg production and egg trade in the EU, which is likely to be forced to import rather than retain its current position as an egg surplus region.