ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2025 47 Resource availability is increasingly limited due to environmental pressures, global economics and worldwide regulations. The availability of nutrients is problematic, being crucial to meet the animal requirements. Therefore, feed efficiency is a popular topic to meet the demand for animal protein, with as little resources as possible, while maintaining overall human, animal and environment health. Due to the exponential growth of the world population and rising incomes, an increase of the food consumption and of the demand for animal proteins is expected in the coming years. The OECD and FAO report on the agricultural outlook 2021-2030 predicts a further global increase of the consumption of eggs, meat, fresh dairy products and fish by 9.2%, 11.6%, 21.7% and 11.4%, respectively. On the other hand, availability of resources is increasingly limited due to environmental pressure, world economics and worldwide regulations restraining the overuse of limited ingredients. Not only the availability of feed materials can be problematic but also the availability of several nutrients (e.g. energy, protein) is crucial for meeting the strict requirements of animals. In this global context, feed efficiency has been a popular topic to meet the demand for animal protein with as little resources as possible, while maintaining human, animal and environment health and welfare. But what is feed efficiency exactly? “Feed efficiency is generally seen as the ability of the animal to fix the maximum amount of nutrients provided by the ration using the concept of RFI (residual feed intake)” (Agricultural Systems, 2023) is one of the provided definitions. However, sources describe this concept all sensibly in different ways, showing the difficulties of outlining such a wide and multifactorial notion. One measurable parameter of the feed efficiency is the feed conversion ratio (FCR). Despite a, what seems to be, simple formula (feed intake divided by weight gain for growing animals), several additional parameters are often overlooked, such as the weight reference (e.g. FCR 2.5kg live weight in broilers), the number of animals (mortality corrected), or the method to measure feed intake (including feed spoilage). These discrepancies clearly highlight the difficulties for comparison and finding an ideal, valid across the globe. In light of this disparity, it becomes key to work together on defining and reaching an acceptable way to measure feed efficiency. Orffa, as a global leader in animal nutrition, invests in such research activities and defines feed efficiency as an essential feed solution area for the future. THE KEY FOR GOOD PROFITABILITY IS THE EFFICIENT USE OF FEED MATERIALS It’s not a secret to anyone that feed is the main FEED EFFICIENCY, A COMPLEX MULTIFACTORIAL CONCEPT IN NUTRITION Aurélie Montagnon Global Solution Manager – Feed Efficiency Orffa Additives BV
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