05/03/13: World grain supply; pig feed formulation; Melbourne grain exports on the up

There were only 67 days of grain supply in the world in January, says former World Bank president Robert Zoellick. The remark was made during a speech at the Forum for the Future of Agriculture conference which takes place today in Brussels, Belgium. Don't worry if you're not there, the event is being streamed online.

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Canola, cottonseed, and sunflower products can replace soybean meal in diets fed to pigs, but they contain less protein and energy according to research conducted at the University of Illinois, USA. To determine if it makes economic sense to use them, producers need to know the concentrations and digestibility of the nutrients they contain. To help them make the decision, University of Illinois researchers examined amino acid digestibility for these products.

"Soybean is by far the biggest oilseed crop in the world," said Hans Stein, professor of animal sciences. "But canola, cottonseed, and sunflowers are grown in areas where soybeans can’t grow. When the oil is taken out of the seed, meal is left over, as with soybean meal.”

His team looked at amino acid digestibility in both intact canola seeds and canola meal, as well as in cottonseed meal, intact sunflower seeds, dehulled sunflower meal, and sunflower meal with hulls, on which there has been little recent digestibility research. The study included soybean meal for comparison.

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It's been a bumper month for grain exports at Emerald Grain’s Melbourne Port Terminal. The grain handling facility has reported its strongest month of exported since it opened in 2000. During February, more than 185,000 tonnes of grain passed through the facility and on to eight destinations across Asia and Africa including China, Japan and Mozambique.

Glen Collision, general manager storage and handling, Emerald Grain said the record month was thanks to improved efficiencies across Emerald’s supply chain. “Emerald has a long-term lease of two locomotives which transport grain quickly from Emerald’s storage sites in New South Wales and Victoria and through to the port.”

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English: Close up of blooms on a canola plant near Yorkton, Saskatchewan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New purpose built feed plant at Moree

In New South Wales, Australia a new purpose built feed plant is set to utilise the North Wests ample grain and cotton seed supplies to produce a new range of livestock nutrition supplements. The opening of Integrated Stock Feed’s (ISF) processing operation follows more than three years of planning and an AUS$8 million (€6.224 million) investment in land, equipment, research and development.

Inside the new Moree plant

“It will use a mechanical process to extract the cotton seed meal, which is cleaner than the more common process of chemical extraction, and results in a base protein with higher energy content and improved palatability, and is more valuable than conventional solvent material,”  said ISF chairman Dominic Devine. Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little, The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and the International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers. To get your copy of 'PPLAPP' click here.

Farmers condemn attack on GM crop

Recently a group of Greenpeace protesters destroyed a crop of GM wheat at the CSIRO farm in Canberra. This destruction which has caused CAN$300,000 (€219,936.395) and a years worth of research. The New South Wales farmers Association condemned the action.

Mark Hoskinson, says "not only is it illegal, but it has destroyed valuable research which has been paid for by levies on Australian grain growers".  “Greenpeace has shown how completely irresponsible it is and has shown contempt for the biosecurity protocols that have been put in place in a controlled environment by the trained and professional CSIRO staff,” he says.  Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little, The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and the International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers

Australian farmers fight sale of AWB to Cargill

The New South Wales Farmers Assocation (NSWFA) is continuing its fight to stop the sale of AWB to US agribusiiness Cargill, telling Canberra that the move is against national interest and threatens the viability of family farming in Australia.

The NSWFA grains committee objected to the AUS$1.2 billion (€0.883 billion) sale following its announcement last December. NSWFA wants to maintain Australian ownership of AWB and convert it into a co-operative structure similar to CBH in WA.

They are looking for government assistance to help purchase the AWB commodity trading business, estimating its value at about AUS$850 million (€625.365 million) but don’t want government legislation re-introduced, to make grain acquisition compulsory, citing a distinct “lack of political will” in that area. Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers

Grain growers look for help

Australian grain growers, are seeking help as the looming crisis facing the nations grain harvest. Rain bands extending from Queensland to Victoria are expected to cause huge damage to the cereal crops across the eastern grain belt. Which could cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars in milling quality grain.

The New South Wales Farmers Association (NSWFA) said “we have a natural disaster developing at the moment”, Queensland has already had a lot of downgraded grain, this is a cancer creeping south. Mr Hoskinson of the (NSWFA) said growers were worried weather-damaged grain would be sold at "firesale" levels. "There is no buyer obliged to buy weather-damaged grain any more with the demise of the single desk”. But an AWB spokesman said there was no difficulty selling feed grain internationally. Read more...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine from Perendale Publishers.