With the goal to increase awareness of U.S. Soy and help customers differentiate between soy of different origins, USSEC conducted a five day training program at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) in Poultry Nutrition and Production for a team of 11 nutritionists and poultry professionals from top poultry integrations and feed manufacturing companies from Russia, Bulgaria and Romania from June 13 – 17.
The classes were organized in close cooperation with Cargill, the Spanish Confederation of Compound Animal Feeds (CESFAC) and the Spanish Animal Nutrition Foundation (FEDNA) under the lead of Professor Gonzalo Mateos of USSEC Spain. Nine lecturers introduced recent advances and reviewed key concepts in poultry related to nutrition, flock management, ingredient quality control and feed manufacturing.
“We were pleased to continue to provide knowledge to U.S. Soy customers through this week’s instructive and intensive short course that enables them to understand the recent advances in poultry nutrition and how to apply them with benefit in the field,” commented Dr. Mateos. “We trust that we have thus not only acted for the benefit of U.S. Soy, but also have upgraded knowledge level of course participants.”
After two and half days of classes, the first stop for the scheduled field visits was to visit Cargill’s area laboratory, serving both customers and internal requests from Spain. Participants listened with high interest and asked intensive questions about near infrared (NIR) technology, wet chemistry, and pathology exams performed in the lab. The impact of soybean meal quality on feed quality and economics was discussed, along with the importance of a quality control monitoring program.
Thanks to the farm visits, the course attendees were able get an understanding of the Spanish experience in industrial poultry farming and feed quality control under EU laws and regulations. Field visits were organized as well at VERAVIC and TECA Feed Mill, two of the most representative feed manufacturing companies from the Extrema Dura region in Spain. Besides learning about the latest advances in poultry nutrition, class participants had the opportunity to understand the Spanish experience in soybean meal differentiation, soy quality control procedures and monitoring programs, and feed quality control under EU laws and regulations.
The training achieved USSEC’s goal in educating Eastern European customers in recent advances in poultry nutrition and soybean meal differentiation. By the end of the event, all the participants had a clear understanding of the concept of soybean meal differentiation based on origin.