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| Turkish company, Mysilo makes grain storage systems and grain handling equipment. Click on the image to find more. |
October 16, 2012
Mysilo
October 15, 2012
Interview: Robin Meng, Buhler
Fish – the feed focus
from Dragon Town
While Buhler Group of Switzerland has been present in China
for three decades, is has just completed its sixth year in its relatively new
manufacturing facilities in the industrial heartland for animal feed of
Changzhou City in Jiangsu Province – a city nicknamed Dragon Town.
It employs more than 800 staff with a focus not just on
manufacturing and sales,
but also R & D,
quality control, servicing, engineering
design, installations and commissioning.
The new
manufacturing facility is working for China and worldwide in the medium and top-end market.
Ninety percent of the business has a feed focus while 10
percent is on ports-to-storage logistics, says Mr Robin Meng, head of Buhler’s international
business department.
“Our main business is related to feed here in Chanzhou.
Logistics has only recently become a focus in China and is no more than two
years old.”
Buhler’s Chanzhou operation is six years old and is growing
rapidly, experiencing almost 30 percent per year.
“We are looking beyond domestic markets to a worldwide
market from China. Our vision or mission is to provide quality products and the
best solutions for our customers. We want sustainable development and also find
a way to satisfy the customer and help bring benefits to them,” he told Grain
and Feed Milling Technology magazine in Beijing recently while attending VIV
China.
 |
| Mr
Robin Meng, Buhler’s head of
international business at its Buhler (Changzhou) Machinery Co Ltd in Changzhou,
Jiangsu Province |
Market changes
Feed processing in China continues to grow, which it has
been doing for the past 30 years. Mr Meng believes demand will continue its
upward growth trend for the next 10 years, at around 10 percent per year.
“China produced 180 million tonnes of animal feed last year
having passed the 100 million tonne mark in 2007-08.”
He says poultry remains the major protein source followed
closely by pork. “But the market is still growing in chicken,” he adds.
An issue facing all Chinese consumers is that of taste when
it comes to chicken.
“Chicken may not be as delicious as before. People are
becoming more wealthy and they are looking for quality of life and food safety
over taste.”
He told GFMT that China has not escaped the issues of food
safety and meat has attracted it’s fair share of criticism, yet is clean and of
good quality.
However, the food-related safety issues are forcing people
to look for alternative healthy sources of protein and they have found it in
fish, says Mr Meng.
“As land animals are not so much available at the prices
people can afford, they are looking to the water and the skies for
alternatives. In past three years growth has been focused on aquaculture.”
Mr Meng says aquaculture is growing at around 30 percent per
annual in fresh water and has to cope with quality issues such as sanitation.
Of course, Mr. Meng
Said, moving to aquaculture is also revealing less attractive profit in
traditional land animal segment and more benefits at a growing stage of the
aquaculture segment.
“If anything it is growing too fast,” he says.
It’s proving difficult for feed producers to keep up and as
a result quality and sanitation plus other aspects of feed usage are not being
focused on as closely as they should be, he adds.
Welcome to Perendale: Tom Blacker
I am delighted to announce that we have added Tom Blacker to our team here at Perendale Publishers Limted.
Tom joins us today from an events and conference organisation based
in London and also has a university degree in English Literature.
He will spend the next few weeks getting to know the team here and
learning about the many exciting projects that we are involved with
before rolling his sleeves up and immersing himself in contributing to
the important work that we do.
Tom’s arsenal of skills and experiences have already created a buzz here at Grain & Feed Milling Technology Magazine, and we look forward to his contribution in establishing our position
as the most comprehensive tool in connecting the international milling
community.
He will also be helping with our associated publications; the International Milling Directory, International Aquafeed and of course our many digital portals including Global Milling News.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Tom and I look forward to working with him towards our future success here at Perendale.
He will also be helping with our associated publications; the International Milling Directory, International Aquafeed and of course our many digital portals including Global Milling News.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Tom and I look forward to working with him towards our future success here at Perendale.
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| Tom Blacker gets to work at Perendale |
15/10/12: US rice exports to China; drought resistant corn; pest risk
- Draft protocol advances prospects for US Rice exports to China. The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Beijing has received a draft phytosanitary protocol from Chinese plant health officials covering prospective exports of U.S.-grown rice to China. A translation of the document has been sent to APHIS headquarters in Riverdale, Maryland, for review and assessment and to formulate a response. “From what we understand, there are a significant number of onerous conditions placed on US milled rice entry into China,” says USA Rice Federation President and CEO Betsy Ward. “Nevertheless, this is a significant achievement.” More information...
- Seed suppliers seek drought resistant corn varieties. As the US tries to recover from one of the driest summers corn seed suppliers are looking towards new strains that can survive with less water, including crossbreeding and GM. Read more...
- Wet weather in the UK means rodents are setting up home in grain stores warns the HGCA and British Pest Control. It's believed that heavy rain has flushed the animals out of their usual field homes. Read more...
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| A laboratory rat strain known as a Zucker rat. These rats are bred to be genetically prone to diabetes, the same metabolic disorder found among humans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Filip
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| Filip makes high-quality sieve cleaning products. The company supplies mills all over the world with a wide variety ofcleaning products. |
October 12, 2012
Trust and transparency in the agricultural value chain a prerequisite to feeding nine billion people
The
agricultural value chain must become more transparent and trustworthy if it is
to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow and address the food needs of nine
billion people by 2050, says Carl Hausmann, Global Policy Advisor for Bunge Inc
in the USA.
Speaking to over 300 members of the Royal Agricultural College’s 100 Club annual luncheon in Cirencester earlier today, he laid out his thoughts on the challenges ahead around a greetings card first published in 1995 by Copa Cogeca, an organisation which represents farmers and their co-operatives within the European Union.
“The picture intrigued me. Whether it represented a reality or a desire, it showed that European citizens were living hectic lives in cities and walking a tightrope to try to get to the countryside where things were orderly, clean, neat and trustworthy.”
However, shortly after this came the BSE crisis, the dioxin scandal, the introduction of GMOs, “and if that picture was the reality in 1995 it certainly hasn’t been the reality since 2000,” he told 100 Club members.
“Today we have many more issues that we must focus on, such as grain production in the Amazon, food versus fuel, food miles, food safety, etc, and the public has less trust in the agriculture value chain than I believe is necessary.”
He said it was not acceptable for some or all of the members of the agricultural value chain to try and say that they were trustworthy while 'other guys' that may be a little less trustworthy.
“This will absolutely not do. We need trust in the whole chain. The United Nations has estimated that by 2050 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban metropolises. And many of these people will not know how you make butter let alone some of the more complex food products we have available today.”
He said consumers need not only to have trust in the agricultural value chain but also have trust in governments and in academic institutions.
“We cannot continue to have a prosperous activities and still serve our clientele in this way. We all know trust within our corporations is critical. For example, it’s critical that employees trust senior management.
“It is not just inside any one institution that we must have trust, our whole societies must be built on trust and if they are not built on trust we will not be able to meet the challenges that we face.”
Mr Hausmann says there are three essential challenges in a global sense that we must all consider:
In order to do that he told his audience, “We must practice greater transparency. People know anyway. Engage on all of these subjects. And we must invest in intellectual capital so that we know what we are talking about.”
He added, “We have a lot of intellectual capital in grain production and grain processing. That’s fine, but what about the whole value chain? What is so critical about the Amazon we need to protect, what are the demands of food safety downstream that consumers are looking for?”
An investment in intellectual capital is critical to our success, he adds.
“This engagement is not easy. But engage we must.” And knowledge of operation is not enough, “you have to learn a lot to be able to engage with others.”
“If this greetings card doesn’t reflect the values of today then it may well reflect the values of tomorrow. When this card was put together maybe Copa Cogeca was thinking of European residence reaching out to European farmers.
“The residences of cities absolutely live in high pressured environments, but the tightrope they are walking today leads from Shanghai back to Brazil, to Europe, to the Ukraine and to the United States. We need to understand that they must have trust in this value chain and the value chain must offer alternatives; organic, non-organic, Brazilian product, US products, lots of alternatives but they must be based on trust.
“My feeling is that if we accept that we must engage - and build trust up - we will not only be able to serve our clientele but we will find it much more stimulating to face these challenges head on.
“So, through this learning experience we will be able to reinvigorate our careers and put together a value chain that will truly serve nine billion citizens of the world from the agriculture production centers wherever in the world they are most sustainable,” he concluded.
Speaking to over 300 members of the Royal Agricultural College’s 100 Club annual luncheon in Cirencester earlier today, he laid out his thoughts on the challenges ahead around a greetings card first published in 1995 by Copa Cogeca, an organisation which represents farmers and their co-operatives within the European Union.
 |
A 1995 greetings card used as a ‘prop’ by
Mr Hausmann during his presentation.
Mr Hausmann said he had received the
greetings card from Copa Cogeca, the united voice of farmers and their
co-operatives in the European Union, in 1995 just after he had arrived in
Europe from the USA
|
“The picture intrigued me. Whether it represented a reality or a desire, it showed that European citizens were living hectic lives in cities and walking a tightrope to try to get to the countryside where things were orderly, clean, neat and trustworthy.”
However, shortly after this came the BSE crisis, the dioxin scandal, the introduction of GMOs, “and if that picture was the reality in 1995 it certainly hasn’t been the reality since 2000,” he told 100 Club members.
 |
Carl Hausmann, Global Policy Advisor for
Bunge Inc, USA (left) with Lord Henry Plumb at the 14th Anniversary Business
Lunch for the Royal Agricultural College’s 100 Club today in the UK. Mr
Hausmann was the keynote speaker along with Dame Lucy Neville-Rolfe, directory
of corporate affairs for Tesco PLC
|
“Today we have many more issues that we must focus on, such as grain production in the Amazon, food versus fuel, food miles, food safety, etc, and the public has less trust in the agriculture value chain than I believe is necessary.”
He said it was not acceptable for some or all of the members of the agricultural value chain to try and say that they were trustworthy while 'other guys' that may be a little less trustworthy.
“This will absolutely not do. We need trust in the whole chain. The United Nations has estimated that by 2050 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban metropolises. And many of these people will not know how you make butter let alone some of the more complex food products we have available today.”
He said consumers need not only to have trust in the agricultural value chain but also have trust in governments and in academic institutions.
“We cannot continue to have a prosperous activities and still serve our clientele in this way. We all know trust within our corporations is critical. For example, it’s critical that employees trust senior management.
“It is not just inside any one institution that we must have trust, our whole societies must be built on trust and if they are not built on trust we will not be able to meet the challenges that we face.”
Mr Hausmann says there are three essential challenges in a global sense that we must all consider:
- Global food production must be increased
- Increase the conservation of natural resources – soil, water, forests, etc
- Society must have trust in its leaders (be that governmental, private sector businesses or NGOs) to come up with ways to meet the first two challenges
In order to do that he told his audience, “We must practice greater transparency. People know anyway. Engage on all of these subjects. And we must invest in intellectual capital so that we know what we are talking about.”
He added, “We have a lot of intellectual capital in grain production and grain processing. That’s fine, but what about the whole value chain? What is so critical about the Amazon we need to protect, what are the demands of food safety downstream that consumers are looking for?”
An investment in intellectual capital is critical to our success, he adds.
“This engagement is not easy. But engage we must.” And knowledge of operation is not enough, “you have to learn a lot to be able to engage with others.”
“If this greetings card doesn’t reflect the values of today then it may well reflect the values of tomorrow. When this card was put together maybe Copa Cogeca was thinking of European residence reaching out to European farmers.
“The residences of cities absolutely live in high pressured environments, but the tightrope they are walking today leads from Shanghai back to Brazil, to Europe, to the Ukraine and to the United States. We need to understand that they must have trust in this value chain and the value chain must offer alternatives; organic, non-organic, Brazilian product, US products, lots of alternatives but they must be based on trust.
“My feeling is that if we accept that we must engage - and build trust up - we will not only be able to serve our clientele but we will find it much more stimulating to face these challenges head on.
“So, through this learning experience we will be able to reinvigorate our careers and put together a value chain that will truly serve nine billion citizens of the world from the agriculture production centers wherever in the world they are most sustainable,” he concluded.
12/10/12: US drought spreads north; aflatoxin; Novus methionine website
Hello,
- Some good news! The presence of aflatoxin in corn in parts of the USA is not as widespread as predicted according to grain elevators in East Iowa. Aflatoxin is harmful or potentially fatal to livestock and is considered cancer-causing to animals and humans. The naturally occurring toxin is the byproduct of a powdery, olive-green mold that has emerged in some Eastern Iowa corn fields. Read more...
- And back to the doom and gloom (sorry). The USA drought is spreading north, threatening winter wheat planting, reports Reuters. Read more...
- The folks at Novus International have launched a new website for Novus Methionine Solutions. The site will be packed with methionine information for nutritionists, feed industry decision-makers and livestock producers. View the site here.
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| English: Grain elevator in Michigan, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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