Romania
In an effort to follow up with recent soybeans imports to Romania, USSEC provided technical support to the Romanian poultry industry.
USSEC consultant Dr. Gary Butcher, professor of Poultry Disease Control at the University of Florida, and Dr. Craig Coon, professor of Poultry Nutrition at the University of Arkansas, were invited to visit key Romanian U.S. Soy end users in November to offer technical assistance in poultry nutrition and disease control. Escorted by local USSEC consultant, Dr. Iani Chihaia, the team had effective and successful one-on-one activities at a key broiler integrator.

Due to recent animal disease outbreaks in the region that raised several challenges for the local meat producing industries, technical support is exceptionally welcome at this time. During the field visits, Dr. Butcher discussed the recurrent disease challenges and offered practical solutions in approaching and eliminating diseases from flocks and maintaining high farm biosecurity levels with the poultry farms’ veterinarians.
Dr. Coon also reviewed several nutritional aspects for the nutritionists and vets, with a focus on soy amino acids’ digestibility and how to practically differentiate soybean meals by origin. The U.S. Soy quality attributes clearly offer advantages and because this is well understood, Romanian nutritionists are able to capture the value of the soybeans’ derivative products.

In addition to being educational for the young poultry veterinarians, the visit was a continuation of past years’ activities and was useful for the USSEC experts in understanding where the Romanian poultry industry will go within the next few years.
“There is a significant opportunity to catalyze additional expansion and stimulate poultry industries from Romania and Bulgaria in order to capture growing demand for superior products from the European market,” Dr. Gary Butcher stated at the end of the farm visit.
“The Romanian industry is continuing to invest in state of the art poultry facilities to comply with the European Union’s latest animal welfare and biosecurity standards. The younger generation of veterinarians and nutritionists have expressed strong interest in improving skills and adopting the latest concepts in poultry nutrition and disease control, which is fundamental to the continued growth of the sector and instrumental to the continuing transformation of the world wide poultry industry,” elaborated Dr. Butcher.
Bulgaria
Recently, the USSEC Poultry Farms Biosecurity Guide was translated into Bulgarian and has been implemented at several large commercial farms in the country. Veterinarians and farm managers appreciate USSEC’s efforts and support in educating the industry on simple but efficient biosecurity measures and disinfections procedures presented in the guide.