USSEC hosted a swine nutrition, management, and feed manufacturing seminar in in Bucharest, Romania on May 19 for industry delegates from Romanian and Polish key swine companies. Presenters covered key aspects of nutrition and management and did an outstanding job of sharing their expertise. The hit of the seminar was USSEC consultant Dr. Gonzalo Mateos’s presentation on raw materials quality control, focused on protein sources used in swine feeding such as soybean products, rapeseed meal, and sunflower meal. U.S. soy nutritional attributes were emphasized and how this protein meal can answer the growing demand for high quality raw materials.

Over the past few years, new swine breeding farms have been established in Romania. This the participants showing a particular interest in Dr. Josep Gasa’s papers related to feeding and management of replacement gilts and high prolific gestating and lactating sows. As a continuation, Dr. Mateos introduced to the audience the bases and practical implications of piglet feeding and management focusing on the early weaning of pigs and the use of soy ingredients and advantages of extruded full fat soybean meal use for this class of pigs.
Dr. Juan Acedo Rico presented feed manufacturing aspects and implications for pig health and productivity. Optimum grains particle size for different classes of pigs and efficiency improvements possibilities for cost savings in pig feed production were the main topics reviewed by the speaker.
By the end of the seminar, the participants thanked USSEC for the informative and worthwhile event, which helped to increase their understanding and importance of nutrition, management, and feed manufacturing for efficient swine production.
Currently, the Polish and Romanian feed industries have a share of over 11 percent of the total EU feed production. Their swine sectors are major contributors to the countries’ animal agriculture. It is crucial that farmers ensure competitiveness, as this industry remains one of the key pillars of their agri-food industry. In the coming years, additional swine production is expected to occur in Romania and Poland making these markets are of additional interest for U.S. Soy exporters.