Trade shows on the move in September, as both Agromek and VIV Asia will move – one in time and the other in place. In addition, Dutch young animal nutrition company Denkavit has hopped to the United States.
SPACE 2019 took place from 10 to 13 September at the Rennes Exhibition Centre in France. This 33rd edition boasted a positive atmosphere as participants came to partake in 4 days of ‘Planet Livestock’. The event brought together 1,400 exhibitors from 42 countries, and 105,318 visitors, including 14,706 international visitors from 122 countries, with international attendance up 2%. The next SPACE will be held at the same venue from 15 to 18 September 2020.
Weda earned an Innov’SPACE innovation award for its intelligent ventilation technology ‘Dust Control’. The cover for the ventilation of feed tanks won over the specialist jury, among other things, as it keeps the feed kitchen dust-free when dosing feed into liquid feeding systems. WEDA head of develop¬ment, Ralf Meyer, says the cover keeps the feed kitchen dust-free by up to 95%.
Danish agricultural exhibition Agromek will be held from 19 to 22 January 2021 in the MCH Exhibition Centre in Herning, Denmark. This change of dates is a consequence of the fact that the French SIMA exhibition and the German EuroTier exhibition have been moved, which presents practical difficulties for those exhibitors who wish to participate at Agromek in addition to exhibiting at the other exhibitions.
More events moving: the venue Impact in Bangkok, Thailand, will be the new home base for VIV Asia 2021. The move to this larger venue anticipates ongoing growth of the international exhibition for animal protein production and processing. With around 1,200 international exhibitors and more than 45,000 professional visits from all over the world registered in 2019, VIV Asia presents all animal species.
And now we are in Thailand, the outbreak of African Swine Fever in South East Asia has had no impact on Charoen Pokphand Foods’ targets, according to CEO Prasit Boondoungprasert. This, he says, is due to business diversification and the balanced proportion of meat products. Meanwhile, the company witnesses an increase in chicken exports to China both in terms of volume and prices.
Belgian biotechnology company ViroVet will partner with researchers at The Pirbright Institute, UK, to develop the first antiviral drugs that act against African Swine Fever (ASF). In the absence of a vaccine, antiviral drugs could provide an alternative control method which would help limit clinical signs in pigs and lower virus replication. This could reduce the spread of disease and help to contain outbreaks, reducing the number of pigs lost.
A new real-time diagnostic kit that will help pig producers fight salmonella infections on their farms has been developed and produced by Biotecon Diagnostics in co-operation with Ceva. The highly sensitive test uses DNA to detect and differentiate between the vaccine strains and field strains of Salmonella Typhimuriu. With this test kit, results can be achieved within 24 hours compared to 5 days for existing tests. The test is safe and reliable, without false negatives.
Ceva is also organising the 4th Global Animal Welfare Awards in cooperation with the World Veterinary Association. This year the scope has been enlarged to recognise veterinary technicians/nurses and veterinary schools in addition to vets and vet students for their work.
Boehringer Ingelheim is developing one of the largest biotechnology production sites for veterinary vaccines in Europe. The first brick was symbolically laid for this complex on 20 September at the 15,000 m2 facility in Lyon, France. The investment of over € 200 million is said to significantly increase production capacities for antigens and vaccines against highly contagious diseases.
MSD/Merck Animal Health has opened submissions for the 2020 High Quality Pork PhD award, which will grant one recent doctoral graduate the opportunity to present their research at an upcoming MSD Animal Health High Quality Pork meeting to be held in Europe, the Americas and Asia in 2020. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered. Details can be found here. The winner will be notified before the end of 2019.
Elanco, at the celebration of the 1st year as independent company, established Elanco’s Healthy Purpose, a corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework, advancing the well-being of animals, people, and the planet and enabling the company to realise its vision of Food and Companionship Enriching Life. It underscores the company’s belief that healthy animals are key to issues like food security and nutrition, human health and well-being, and sustainability.
Livestock equipment manufacturer and supplier, Hog Slat, have announced the opening of a new store in Michigan. The new 550m2 store carries a full line of production equipment for swine, poultry, and turkey producers featuring Hog Slat’s exclusive line of GrowerSelect ventilation and feeding equipment.
Nedap has introduced Nedap Activator, an add-on to Nedap Farrowing Feeding that automatically drops snack-sized feed portions when sows trigger an electronic sensor with their snouts. This stimulates the appetite of the sows. Producers can easily mount the wireless Nedap Activator to feeders in new or existing farrowing feeding automatic systems.
Time for news from the animal nutrition business. The Dutch family-owned company Denkavit has recently reached an agreement with their US subsidiary, Grober Nutrition, for its acquisition. Grober Nutrition is a young animal nutrition and feed ingredients company in New York. Denkavit has been in business for more than 80 years specialising in young animal nutrition and feed ingredients.
Hamlet Protein recently co-hosted a technical seminar in Guangzhou, China, together with USSEC and Vland. The seminar focused on how to prepare for the ban of antibiotic growth promoters and use of zinc oxide in animal diets in China. The event was attended by nutritionists and vets from integrators, feed mills and premixers, as well as academics. Presenters included Prof Georg Dusel, Bingen University, Germany and Lars Sangill Andersen, nutritionist.
ADM has announced a US$ 2.5 million gift to assist with the construction of the Illinois Feed Technology Center aimed to advance educational and research opportunities within the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois, and to advance animal nutrition globally. ACES will expand on the work done by researchers through the production of large and small batches of traditional and specialised research diets.
Arm & Hammer, a business unit of Church & Dwight, announces a new URL, AHfoodchain.com, for its company website. The site was previously accessible through at AHanimalnutrition.com. The new hub is an online resource covering everything from solving customer pain points and sharing success stories to providing a point of view on globally focused issues and addressing industry misconceptions.
Royal Agrifirm Group launched its new functional feed ingredients brand called Agrimprove. Within this brand Agrifirm develops new ideas in animal health and nutrition, and grows these into improvements throughout the agri-food chain. The brand will be always be created in close collaboration with stakeholders in farming, feed and food production, and in retail. The brand is based on the functional feed ingredients line formerly known as Nuscience’s Health4U portfolio.
DuPont Animal Nutrition has launched Axtra PHY in Japan. This product is a fast-acting phytase enzyme designed to improve animal performance and reduce phosphorus waste in swine. The phytase enzyme works quickly in the digestive tract to break down phytate, the main storage form of phosphorus contained in plants and a key anti-nutrient. By lowering the impact of phytate, the availability of phosphorus, energy and amino acids present in the feed is increased.
Agri technology company Devenish, headquartered in Northern Ireland, has trained over 300 local farmers in Uganda in Africa since establishing a model pig farm in Hoima in 2015. The company has invested over £1million (€ 1.1 million) developing its business in the region. The project aims to improve the livelihoods of local farmers by helping them to transition from subsistence farming to sustainable commercial level farming.
The Netherlands retailer Plus has opted for its own closed-chain for fresh pork and meat products. The collaboration with 14 pig farmers in the Netherlands ensures transparency and offers new possibilities in such fields as taste and animal welfare. Together with its supplier, Vion, and the pig farmers, the supermarket organisation will work in the coming years on tastier and more responsible meat.