Milling and Grain had the opportunity to interview the head of China’s technical committee who is leading its proposal to have all feed manufacturing equipment compliant under a new ISO/TC293 standard.
Professor Weiguo Wang, who graduated in 1977 from Zhengzhou Grain College, Henan Province, majored in grain processing before teaching at Zhengzhou Grain College (now, the Zhengzhou University of Technology). He achieved his Masters’ Degree in Grain, Oil and Plant Protein Engineering in 2001 from Jiangnan University, became associate professor in 1992 and professor in 2000 in feed science and technology. He was also head of the Department of Grain Engineering from 1997-98 and chairman of the Bio-engineering College from 1999-2007.
Today, Prof Wang is the chairman of feed branch of the Chinese Cereal and Oil Association, a member of National Feed Evaluation Committee of China and a member of the Standardisation Technical Committee of Feed Machinery of China and is the convenor of ISO/TC293/WG1. He has published 160 papers on feed science and technology and has received three first prizes in science and technology on both provincial and ministerial level
What brought you into this industry?
Actually, it is the requirement for opening the new course of feed processing technology and equipment in our university that brought me into the feed industry in 1979. 1978 is the first year of China’s reform and opening and also the starting year of Chinese feed industry.
In that year, developing the feed industry became the policy of Chinese government to promote the development of animal feeding and to change the native shortage of meat, egg and milk. So, training talents in feed processing technology for the feed industry became an urgent task. At the beginning of 1980, I was asked to change my teaching course of flour milling to feed processing technology as my English and Japanese were good. I am the ‘witness’ of the development of Chinese feed industry over the past 40 years. China became the top feed producing country in 2011 and has maintained the position of the largest feed producer in the world until now.
What are your proudest achievements during your time at university?
As the leader of feed specialty of our University, I promoted and set up the feed engineering specialty of junior college in 1987, the animal nutrition and feed processing specialty of bachelor’ degree in 1995 and animal nutrition and feed science specialty of masters’ degree in 2003.
All these specialties have engineering basis, that are different from the animal science specialties with pure agricultural basis in most other agricultural universities in China. So our graduated students can be engaged in the job both in feed engineering and feed science. Now our university can educate doctor degree students in feed science and technology.
More than 2500 students of feed specialty graduated from our university, they have played important roles in feedmill design and construction, feed production management, feed product development and feed quality control in native and foreign feed companies, feed machinery companies and some of them work in universities and research institutes. The second proudest achievement is that I have served the Chinese feed industry for 40 years ,especially in feed processing technology.
What major challenges do you foresee for the feed industry over the next five years?
Major challenges are feed safety, feed resource stability of supply, feed efficiency enhancement, energy saving and science and technology innovation ability.
For feed safety there are some new issues that need to be deal with. For example, biosecurity issues, such as ASF, some pathogenic bacteria, new found allergens etc.
As the world’s population continues to grow feed production will need to increase to 1.5 billion tonnes by 2050. How to supply enough protein resources and other ingredients to the feed industry will be the greatest challenge. Enhancing the feed utilisation rate can both reduce the feed resources needed and reduce the impact on the environment, but this needs key scientific and technology innovations in developing new protein resources and other feed resources.
The precise nutrition and accurate processing technologies of feed products can also make important contributions to this issue. Energy saving is always the cost effective aim of all feedmillers and the aim of green development to reduce carbon emissions. The science and technology innovation ability is a complex issue related to long-term investment from nations, provinces, enterprises etc long-term focusing on the key basic and application technology, research issues and good talent training and management system.
What are the developing trends of feed industry in China in the future?
Antibiotics used as growth promoter (AGP) were officially banned from July 2020 in China. The AGP replacing technologies become the hottest topics now across China. Some abstracts and their prescriptions from the Chinese herbs have shown positive results in animal feeding practice, more are in research.
The comprehensive measures including nutrition profile improvement, feed ingredient and product sanitary control, developing and optimised application technologies of potential non-AGP feed additives and novel feed processing technologies are in development.
China is the largest soybean meal consumer and importer for compound feed production now and future, so increasing native soybean production, developing new and quality protein sources to improve protein supply and developing innovative technologies to enhance feed protein utilisation markedly will be a very important developing trend.
Novel feed processing technology trends will mainly focus on the new physical processing technologies and novel bio-processing technologies. The first includes new cleaning, special grinding, thermal conditioning, extruding and drying technologies etc which can improve energy efficiency, nutrient availability, product quality, product safety, reduce processing cost, increase feed profit.
The second refers to the novel specific fermentation technologies for different raw materials and feed products, which can reduce anti-nutritional factors, pre-digest the materials, improve the nutritional profile and flavors, produce some functional components etc.
Quick and on-line testing technologies for feed raw materials, feed additive, product in progress and finished product are very important for instant and precise feed quality control and decision making. NIR and other new non-destructive testing technologies will play a more important role in the future.
The standard for the pathogenic bacteria in feed materials and feed product will be increased like in human foods. The biosecurity system for feedmills will be strengthened, such as the prevention measures for ASF and other pathogenic bacteria, virus.
How do you see sustainability evolving in the feed industry?
The sustainability of feed industry is one part of the whole of society’s sustainability globally. So each part should take its responsibility in order to reach the goal for sustainability for the whole society. For the feed industry we should develop ecological feeds. I proposed the concept of ecological feeds in 2001 in my paper ‘Ecological feed and its manufacturing technology’ (Feed Industry, 2001,22(3)).
Ecological feed refers to the feed product which has the best nutrient utilisation and animal performance, with the best safety to the feeding animals, operators and the environment, can promote the ecological harmony.
Sustainability involves many sub-issues such as energy saving, feed efficiency enhancing, feed safety, production safety, environment protection, professional health, animal welfare, etc. we can expect big progress on this issue in the future.
Focusing on feed industry, how do you see feed equipment developing over the next decade?
Feed equipment in the past has greatly promoted the progress of feed industry processing technology, product quality and cost, production efficiency and safety, as well as maintaining the competitive advantage of feed mills. I believe that feed equipment technologies will be progressed along the following aspects: higher energy efficiency equipment, safer equipment technologies, intelligent control technologies of feed processing machines and whole production line, unmanned feed production lines, new automatic solid fermenting equipment.
How to cultivate and strengthen skilled employees for the feed industry?
Cultivating talent is one of the most important issues for the feed industry. From universities the feed industry needs mainly graduates from animal science and nutrition specialties, feed technology and engineering specialties and other related specialties such as quality test and control, marketing management etc for ordinary operations and management.
For feed technology research and development or innovation, masters or doctor degree students are needed.
The most sought after talents are those with the knowledge of feed engineering and processing technology, feed science and management.
As I know, only Kansas State University of USA has the specialty-feed science and management course. In China, now only two universities - Henan university of Technology and Wuhan Polytechnic University educate bachelor students with a feed engineering basis in animal science.
Now we are promoting the establishment of a feed engineering specialty in the catalogue of undergraduate major. For feed enterprises, talent training or cultivation also needs to be strengthened. That is the key work to keep an enterprise sustainable, with strong compatibility, confronting fierce market competition.
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