Grants awarded for Innovative Projects with emerging markets - THE NETHERLANDS - Last week, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs awarded Nutreco companies with grants for stimulating Research and Development with emerging markets. The grants, were awarded for two different projects in emerging markets, broiler research with China and sustainable pig farming with South Korea.

The project with China, titled “Healthy Broiler”, is aimed to select Yellow Broilers for increased disease resistance. Yellow broiler production in China covers about 50% of total broiler meat production in China and is increasing 10-15% per year. Due to the fact that Yellow Broilers are kept under bad environmental circumstances (eg. less biosecurity, hot and humid climate), they need a higher disease resistance.

For this reason, effects of special diets on reduction of climate stress will be studied, as well as the use of alternatives for antibiotics in order to produce safe meat.

The project will be carried out as a joint study by Hybro, Agricultural University Wageningen, Trouw Nutrition International and Jiangsu Provincial Institute of Poultry Science in Yangzhou (China), with the possibility that another Chinese partner might join as well.

The other project, titled “Save the Pig”, is aimed at development of pig feed, advice tools and bio security protocols for a sustainable pig farming in South Korea. Current survival rates of pigs are very low in South Korea: less than 70%, compared to 85% in the Netherlands.

Main critical periods will be studied in order to increase survival: perinatal survival (through improved placental development of the sows), postnatal survival (support of low-birth weight piglets) and management of growth and uniformity.

Within this project, functional feeds will be developed for the Asian market, as well as non-feed measurements by Nutreco’s Swine Research Centre, Trouw Nutrition Hifeed, Selko and Sunjin Co.Ltd. in Seoul (South Korea).

For Nutreco, these projects are important for further facilitating entrance in the Asian markets through the opportunity to increase knowledge of local animal production and environmental factors. Development of tailor-made products (broilers, nutrition and management tools) for sustainable farming based on this knowledge will lead to increased economic perspective.

ThePoultrySite News Desk