U.S. Soy farmer leaders Bill Gordon, American Soybean Association (ASA) director, and Lance Rezac, United Soybean Board (USB) director, recently traveled to Madrid to attend USSEC’s feed ingredients training course. The grower leaders had the opportunity to meet with customers attending the course and USSEC staff members operating in European countries.
USSEC and FEDNA worked for more than six months to put together the Feed Ingredients Training Course, recently held in Madrid, Spain.
USSEC consultants Dr. Gonzalo Mateos, UPM, Spain and Dr. Hans Stein, University of Illinois were assisted in their planning and organizing by a group of Dr. Mateos’ Ph.D. students. About 330 participants from four continents and forty countries attended the event. Although some participants were sponsored by USSEC, the majority were sent by their companies and/or paid their own way.
Among this huge international group of professionals, USSEC Poland had a team representing the Polish feed manufacturing industry, who spent the entire five days participating in all of the presentations and discussions. The Polish attendees enjoyed the course and said it was the most outstanding professional training event they had experienced.
Lecturers included internationally renowned speakers from celebrated research institutions and included Dr. Stein; Dr. Charles Martin Nychoti, University of Manitoba, Canada; Dr. Markus Rodehutscord, Hohenheim University, Germany; Dr. Rommel Sulabo, University of the Philippines, Los Banos, Philippines; Dr. Birger Svihus, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Aas, Norway; Dr. Gloria Casas, National University of Colombia, Columbia; Francesc Molist, Schorthorst Feed Research, the Netherlands; and Dr. Mateos.
These scienctific voices were followed by a number of speakers representing the commercial sector, namely Dr. Ester Vinyeta, Nutreco BV, Spain and Juna Acedo-Rico, Acedo-Rico & Associates, Spain.
These distinguished speakers covered a vast majority of topics related to various feed ingredients’ characteristics and the most modern recommendations for use mainly in monogastric animals, with protein sources and U.S. Soy receiving attention.
Mr. Gordon and Mr. Rezac also travelled in other countries in the region to acquaint themselves with market developments and USSEC’s marketing program on the ground.
Industry members in many countries are already looking forward to the next edition of this highly valuable training course. They also hope U.S. Soy will make this course its European flagship held on an annual or at least biannual basis.