ISSUE FOCUS 36 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2026 Pig production faces constant economic, social, and geopolitical challenges beyond farmers' control. Therefore, focusing on controllable aspects like feed safety is critical. Since viral contaminations cannot be predicted, medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) offer a practical tool to manage such risks at the point of feed delivery. Pig production is facing constant economic, social, and geopolitical challenges, over which farmers have limited control. Therefore, it is critical to focus on the controllable aspects of farm operations, such as feed safety. The occurrence, severity, and pathogen involved in viral contaminations cannot be predicted in advance. Therefore, medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) offer a practical tool to help manage such risks at the point where feed is supplied to the animals. Managing a farm today requires other skills compared to 20 years ago. Just as any other CEO, farm owners and managers spend most of their time and energy focusing and monitoring the aspects of their farm via data. This data forms the basis for farm optimization and continuous improvement projects. Obviously, proper management, high-quality nutrition, and complete biosecurity can be included. All of these are of paramount importance when it comes to technical results in swine production. Raw material quality is at a crossing point between high-quality nutrition and biosecurity. Unfortunately, due to legislation, geo-political events, climate change, and other global events, finding high quality raw materials is becoming more and more a burden for our industry. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to monitor and measure all incoming raw materials on multiple levels like nutritional content, mycotoxin contamination, oxidation degree, Salmonella, and many more. New raw materials and/or feeds are entering our farms almost on a daily basis, so also on biosecurity they cannot be overlooked. For example, what about the risk of pathogen transmission via feed? In the case of viruses, reference studies – such as Niederwerder et al., 2019 – have confirmed that, even when feed is contaminated with a virus at low levels, the frequent direct contact among animals in the feeder can make the feed a more significant risk factor for transmission than water or other biosecurity considerations. It is very often extremely difficult to find out how the crops have been treated before, during, and after harvest. These factors can increase significantly the chance of contamination by important diseases (picture 1). Consequently, very often mitigation ENHANCED FEED SAFETY ON FARMS ENSURES SERENITY IN UNCERTAIN TIMES Romain D'Inca Category specialist MCFA Agrifirm
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