USSEC Conducts 4th Poultry Roundtable for Maghreb’s Feed Industry
- Category:
- Animal Utilization
- General News
USSEC conducted its 4th Poultry Roundtable for Maghreb’s Feed Industry on April 4 and 5 in Skhirat (Rabat area), Morocco. The conference, part of USSEC’s FY17 promotional program in the Middle East / North Africa (MENA) region, provided an excellent platform to discuss current issues in poultry feeding in Maghreb. Over 45 key customers from the feed and poultry industry attended the conference: 9 from Tunisia, 13 from Algeria and 24 from Morocco.
The program aimed to update feed mill owners and managers, nutritionists, integrators, traders, and others recent advances in nutrition and feeding of poultry, showing the advantages of U.S. soybean meal.
USSEC Regional Director – MENA Brent Babb highlighted the importance of Maghreb markets within MENA and globally. Morocco and Tunisia are the largest buyers of U.S. Soy products, which are the main U.S. agricultural value products in Maghreb, a leading export destination for U.S. Soy products.
USSEC and American Soybean (ASA) director Kevin Scott and United Soybean Board (USB) directors Jim Carroll and John Harrell visited leading poultry customers’ facilities in Morocco. Mr. Carroll and Mr. Scott presented their respective farming operations, U.S. Soy production, and showed the sustainability of their practices. They presented U.S. soybean farmer sustainability goals by 2025.
Dr. Rory Deverel, vice president of INTL FC Stone Ltd, covered global supply and demand of different feed commodities, market trends, and variation factors.
A presenter from each of the three markets updated attendees on poultry and feed industries in their respective markets and discussed various aspects of the soy business in the Maghreb region during the panel organized at the end of the roundtable conference. “B” to “B” sessions were then held with USSEC consultant experts.
The conference was followed by field visits to key customers’ facilities in feed and poultry industry. All customers visited were satisfied with the consistent quality of U.S. soybean meal and the reliability of the U.S. soybean value chain. These two main recognized advantages of U.S. Soy products are not found when soybean meal is sourced from other origins.
Team discussions at one-on-one meeting with Alf Al Mabrouk covered quality issues of U.S. soybean meal. At Alf Sahel, the largest mill in Morocco, a visit was organized to the new extrusion facility that was recently installed. Purchasing and logistics of soy products from the U.S. were discussed at Sofalim feed mill where the team highlighted the need for high quality feed and ingredients such as U.S. hipro meal to obtain top performance for the company turkey and broiler productions.
Although Morocco’s compound feed production declined to 3.75 million metric tons (MMT) in 2016 due to the avian influenza (AI) outbreak with 73 percent going to the poultry industry, poultry remains by far the main the largest user of soybean meal.