Competition is growing for animal-feed market share
Poultry and livestock farmers demand high levels of protein to maximize their animals’ potential. While many animal ag farmers have relied on soybean meal for years to meet their needs, other alternatives are available.
“From our perspective as animal feeders, we would like to see more emphasis on the protein level in soybeans,” says R. Dean Boyd, Ph.D., technical director for Hanover Company, a pork-production and food-processing firm. “That has not been the focus of soybean farmers over the last few years when selecting seed.”
Soon, poultry and livestock farmers will have additional options to meet their animals’ needs– and that may not bode well for the U.S. soy industry.
Dow AgroSciences recently announced it will offer a new high-protein canola meal for hog and poultry farmers in 2017. That new product will have a protein content of around 44 percent, compared with canola meal’s typical protein level of around 37 percent.
And Ajinomoto Animal Nutrition Group, Inc. announced that it will begin feed-grade production of the essential amino acid tryptophan in North America in 2017. The company will have the capacity to produce approximately 3,000 tons of tryptophan per year.
Both announcements pose threats to the U.S. soy industry and its share of the animal-feed market, which makes it more important than ever for farmers to grow high-quality soybeans.
“Soybean farmers can gain back some of their lost market share by growing a bean that has a higher level of protein,” says Boyd. “Soybean meal is an extremely good source of protein because it has such a high-quality balance of amino acids, but the protein levels need to be better.”
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