USSEC participated in the annual scientific and practical conference, “Integrative and Innovative Development of Compound Feed Industry of Agro-Industrial Complex,” organized by JSC VNIIKP, the Russian Research Institute of Compound Feed Industry, and the Russian Union of Compound Feed Manufacturers. At the invitation of Dr. Valery Afanasyev, the President of the Russian Union of Compound Feed Manufactures, USSEC Eastern European consultant Dr. Iani Chihaia and USSEC local consultant Dr. Maria Domoroschenkova attended the forum and gave technical presentations to a large audience.
The event took place from May 27-29 in Voronezh, the heart of the Russian feed industry. More than a hundred Russian feed technologists, nutritionists, researchers, managers, and poultry and livestock breeders attended this conference, which is widely described by commercial feed nutritionists as one of the most important events of the feed industry in the country.
Dr. Domoroshchenkova presented an overview of the status of the Russian soy market under recent developments and the characteristics of soy protein additives available for different feed applications manufactured locally or imported to Russia. She emphasized the soybean meal urease and trypsin inhibitors levels currently accepted in Russia and compared these with standards from different countries around the world, including the U.S. and EU. The interactions and discussions during the presentations clearly demonstrated the interest of the Russian feed industry in learning the latest news and upgrading standards of quality for soybean meals.
Dr. Chihaia introduced the importance of soy for the global and regional animal industries, proper processing and efficient usage of soy and emphasized the role of quality control of soybean meals from different origin or different processing technologies.
He said, “I was glad to have the opportunity to attend the event in Voronezh and learn more about the current challenges and opportunities in the local feed sector. Meantime, I had the chance to meet with Russian industry colleagues involved directly in commercial feed production.” Dr. Chihaia continued, “We had excellent practical discussions about feed ingredients quality, particularly protein ingredients and especially about soybean meal and full fat soybean meal. Most of the participants we interacted with showed a high interest in learning more about soy quality, differentiation and proper usage of soy products in animal diets. Future activities should be implemented by USSEC, focusing on assisting end users of U.S. soy, Sodrugestvo customers.”
Russia currently produces over 27 million tons of compound feed at 259 feed mills annually. More than 40 plants were constructed during the last five years. Additionally, vertically integrated swine and poultry producers and meat processors produce substantial volumes of feed for internal consumption. For the past decade, Russia was one of the fastest growing animal protein countries with 28-29 percent growth in chicken production, 16 percent growth in pork production and 4.7 percent growth in cattle production during the 2008-2012 period. According to estimates of the Russian Union of Compound Feed Manufacturers, the demand of the local feed industry for soy will be more than 4 million metric tons (MMT) in 2015. This figure could be substantially higher in case of optimizing of local feed formulations following modern nutritional requirements. Currently, a ratio of fodder grains in local feed formulations reaches an average 75 percent versus 45 percent in Europe. Although trading down impact and weaker investment conditions disturbs short-term dynamics, long-term fundamental remains positive for Russia. This is expected to potentially increase the current usage of soy by the local animal protein production industry. In the current marketing year, Sodrugestvo, the leading Russian soybean crusher, has contracted 350 thousand metric tons (TMT) of U.S. soybeans. Perdue Inc. is the leading supplier of soybeans to Sodrugestvo.