Animal Pharm Reports
Livestock Performance Products & Markets
Published April 2007
Subscribe to Animal Pharm to receive the full report
<< back to Reports 2007
CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction to the livestock industry
Meat and meat products are an important part of diet in many parts of the world, especially in developed nations where consumption of animal protein per capita is at its highest. World meat consumption increased from 47 million tons in 1950 to 260 million tons in 2005, more than doubling consumption per person from 17 kilograms to 40 kilograms. Consumption of milk and eggs has also risen. With annual sales surpassing $100 billion, the United States is the world's second largest meat-producing country, following China. With annual revenues of $30 billion, the US poultry industry is the world's largest producer and exporter of poultry meat.
Although the type of livestock reared and farming practices vary worldwide and depend on factors such as climate, consumer demand, native animals, local traditions, and land type, livestock are generally kept in an enclosure and fed by human-provided food. The enclosure of livestock in pastures and barns is a relatively new development in the history of agriculture.
Indoor production systems are generally used only for pigs and poultry, as well as for veal cattle. Indoor animals are generally farmed intensively, as large space requirements would make indoor farming unprofitable and impossible. However, indoor farming systems are controversial due to: the waste they produce, odor problems, the potential for groundwater contamination and animal welfare concerns. Other livestock are farmed outside, although the size of enclosure and level of supervision may vary. Rotation of pasturage is a modern technique for improving nutrition and health while avoiding environmental damage to the land.
In some cases very large numbers of animals may be kept in indoor or outdoor feeding operations (on feedlots), where the animals' feed is processed, offsite or onsite, and stored onsite then fed to the animals.
Modern farming techniques seek to minimize human involvement, increase yield, and improve animal health. Economics, quality and consumer safety all play a role in how animals are raised. Drug use and feed supplements (or even feed type) may be regulated, or prohibited, to ensure yield is not increased at the expense of consumer health, safety or animal welfare, although practices vary around the world.
The North American livestock industry has and continues to undergo major structural change due to rapid evolution in product characteristics, worldwide production and consumption patterns, technology, size of operation, and geographic location. Production, once dominated by independent, family-based, small-scale firms, is now led by larger firms that are tightly aligned across the production and distribution chain. Based on beef production per head of cattle, the US today is the most efficient beef producer in the world.
Although there is great diversity in how livestock is produced in North America and the world, common themes are emerging. As in North America, many countries are experiencing major structural changes in their production sectors, and environmental concerns in production are nearly universal. Technology adoption is rapid, and a "world standard" is evolving to greater commonality of technology, size of production units, processing and quality, particularly in the case of pork and poultry. This is less so for beef, in large part because of its reliance on forage.
1.1.1 Categories of livestock
The modern livestock industry favors a few breeds primarily for their high levels of productivity. The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes describes six categories of livestock establishments:
• Cattle ranching and farming, dairy farming. Establishments primarily engaged in raising cattle, milking dairy cattle, or feeding cattle for fattening account for 78 percent of all US livestock establishments. Of these, approximately 89 percent are beef cattle establishments, including feedlots. The remaining 11 percent are dairy cattle and milk production facilities.
• Pig farming.
• Poultry and egg production.
• Sheep and goat farming.
• Animal aquaculture (including finfish and shellfish).
• Other animal production (including bees, horses, and rabbits). Also includes those establishments for which no one animal or animal family represents one-half of production.
In this report, the focus will be on the most commercially important breeds of livestock - cattle and sheep (which are ruminants with a four-chambered complex stomach) and pigs and poultry (which are monogastric animals with a simple single-chambered stomach). Where appropriate, consideration will also be given to aquaculture.
1.2 Feeding of farm animals
The basic diet of a ruminant is made up of forage, either fresh grass obtained by grazing in pastures or harvested forage such as hay or maize silage. On top of this basic diet, ruminants receive a mixture of different ingredients, called compound feed. Other animal species do not eat forage and their diet is therefore based only on compound feed.
The production of animal feed is one of the most important sectors of activity in agriculture. Compound feeds contain organic or inorganic substances in mixtures, often with feed additives, for oral animal feeding in the form of complete feeding stuffs or complementary feeding stuffs. The nutritional composition of compound feeds vary according to the animals in question. A large range of raw materials may be used in compound feed: in particular cereals, but also a number of food industry by-products, e.g. bran produced by the flour milling industry; or oilseed meals - what is left after the oil industry has extracted oil from oil-rich seeds such as soya or sunflower. These materials are often combined with feed additives. Feed additives are an integral part of modern animal husbandry which aims to improve animal production, performance and welfare.
Compound feeds may be stored as meal, but are usually processed into pellets, which are easier for the animal to eat. Over 90% of all compound feed is used for poultry, pigs and cattle. Nowadays, almost a third of the feed consumed by farm animals is purchased from compound feed manufacturers. These manufacturers benefit from advanced research facilities and increased understanding of animal nutrition, enabling them to determine the optimal animal feed systems that reconcile variable production systems, environmental protection and consumer demands regarding the quality of animal products.
Feed additives may also be formulated as premixtures. These may be a mixture of feed additives, or a mixture of one or more feed additives with feed materials or water used as carriers. A premixture is intended for incorporation in compound feedingstuffs, feed materials or water and not meant for direct feeding to animals. The function of the premixture is to optimize mixing of feed additives in feeding stuffs.
Feed additives are used worldwide for many different reasons. Some help to cover the needs for essential nutrients and others to increase animal performance, feed intake and thereby optimize feed utilization. They can positively affect technological properties and quality of feed as well as animal products.
The trend in consumer demand is for safer and more organic food. Therefore, the feed industry needs effective additives which are acceptable to the consumer and environmentally sound.
1.3 Approaches to performance enhancement
In all livestock production, healthy animals with optimal feed utilization is a main objective for profitability. This report will review traditional and emergent strategies for the enhancement of livestock performance. These include the use of medicated feed additives (antibiotics) and other medicated products (hormones, beta-agonists), and various non-medicated feed additives.
Cattle ordinarily require 5 kilograms of feed to produce 1 kilogram of weight gain. Under optimal growth promoting conditions, and with enriched feed, they gain 1 kilogram with only 3 kilograms of feed. There have been many approaches to stimulate the growth rate of livestock and to enhance feed conversion efficiencies. Initially the rules on animal feed from the 1970s put the emphasis on the use of medicated products. Medicated feed additives are pharmaceutical products added to feedstuffs. The inclusion rate for these products is extremely small - measured in grams per ton of feed. Routine use of performance-enhancing antibiotic feed additives became almost universal during the 1970s. Hormones, given as subcutaneous implants, may also be used to accelerate the growth rate of animals. Although the use of performance-enhancing antibiotics and hormones is now banned in the EC, they are still in widespread use in the US and many non-EU countries.
Despite progress made in recent years, farm animals often experience stress, which may be related to weaning, crowding, feed changes, new environments, weather, transportation and, in dairy cows, stage of lactation. Stress often causes an imbalance in the microbial content of the intestine resulting in intestinal infections, digestive upsets, and reduction in feed intake with lowered growth and production.
In recent years consumers and governments in many countries have been pressing for reforms in the food production process to protect human and animal health and to some extent, the environment. At the same time, with an ever-increasing world demand for food, there is constant pressure to increase the rate of production of food. To achieve this goal, the husbandry environment must be such that the conditions provided therein are biased towards achieving an acceptable growth performance. In other words, the conditions must be sufficient to allow an acceptable growth rate (the rate of unit gain in live weight), an acceptable efficiency of feed use (the amount of feed required per unit gain in live weight) and an acceptable final weight, so that at slaughter, each carcass is characterized by a dressed weight and fat content which meets a specified industry standard.
With the use of antibiotics and other medicated performance enhancers facing bans in an increasing number of countries around the world, the industry needs safe and effective alternative products. Non-medicated feed additives provide various means of enhancing livestock performance. Several factors determine their acceptance: anticipated response, economic return, available research, and field responses. Response refers to expected performance changes the user could expect or anticipate when a feed additive is included. For example, in dairy cattle the following responses may be possible:
• Increase in milk yield (peak milk and/or milk persistency)
• Increase in milk components (protein and/or fat)
• Increase in dry matter intake
• Stimulation of rumen microbial synthesis of protein and/or volatile fatty acid (VFA) production
• Stabilization of rumen environment and pH
• Stimulation of digestion in the digestive tract
• Stimulation of growth (gain and/or feed efficiency)
• Reduction of heat stress effects
Improvement of health (e.g. reduction of ketosis, reduction of acidosis, or improvement of immune response).
1.4 Regulatory issues
Medicated feed additives (MFA) and other medicated products cannot be manufactured or marketed without governmental product registrations that are specific to each country. Before a product registration is granted, the applicant must show the regulatory authority that the product and its proposed use are both effective and safe for the specified species and application. Obtaining such a product registration from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is comparable in cost and difficulty with obtaining approval for drugs used to treat humans. In addition to approval of formulation and labeling, regulatory authorities typically require approval and periodic inspection of the manufacturing facilities. Because of the costs and difficulties associated with obtaining MFA product registrations, there have been few new medicated performance enhancers developed and marketed over the last decade.
The FDA controls all feed additives with strict rules for their use. Feed additives cannot be used extra-label. They must be used at the dosage, for the class of cattle, and only with the approved combinations specified on the label. Some feed additives can only be used with a feed mill license.
The use of medicated performance enhancers with perceived high risks to human health has already been banned in the EU.
In the US, the use of food products is governed by the provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), and the regulations issued under its authority. These regulations are published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The FFDCA defines food as "articles used for food or drink for man or other animals..." Therefore, any product that is intended to be used as an animal feed ingredient, to become part of an ingredient or feed, or added to an animal's drinking water is considered a "food" and thus, is subject to regulation. FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is responsible for the regulation of animal food (feed) products. The CVM monitors and establishes standards for feed contaminants, approves safe food additives, and manages the FDA's medicated feed and pet food programs.
Within the EU, non-medicated feed additives may not be put on the market without authorization by the European Commission.
European Parliament and Council Regulation 1831/2003, applicable as of October 18, 2004, regulates the use of additives in animal nutrition. It sets out rules for the authorization, marketing and labeling of feed additives. The authorization can only be granted after a scientific evaluation demonstrating that the additive has no harmful effects on human and animal health and on the environment. A structured dossier needs to be submitted, and the assessment is made against criteria of safety, quality and efficacy. Only feed additives that were granted an authorization may be put on the market.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is responsible for conducting the scientific evaluation prior to authorization. In this task EFSA is assisted by a Community Reference Laboratory (CRL). EFSA carries out the scientific safety assessment while the CRL evaluates the analytical methods proposed to be used to determine the presence of the additive in feed and its possible residues in food. Methods for the analysis of residues in food are particularly important in the cases when the authorization establishes maximum residue levels (MRLs) in animal-derived food products.
The EC register of feed additives was published for the first time in November 2005 and is updated whenever authorizations are modified. A granted authorization is valid for 10 years and is renewable.
Subscribe to Animal Pharm to receive the full report
<< back to Reports 2007
Email a friend
Digital RSS Feed
