In early September, USSEC held a one-day seminar, “Near Infrared Spectroscopy and Feed Microscopy,” in Bucharest, Romania, with the aim to support the Romanian feed industry to adopt Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) and microscopy technologies as tools for quality control and to detect potential adulteration of raw materials and feeds.
Quality control representatives, feed mill managers, and nutritionists from Romania attended the event and showed great interest in learning more about how to properly interpret the statistic results from NIRS analysis and how to implement qualitative analysis of soybean meals of different origins.

“Great care should be taken in developing NIRS calibrations as problems can arise when the primary methods do not define well the chemical constituent, and sample preparation is not as consistent as required,” Dr. Paloma Rebollar, professor at the University Politecnica in Madrid, Spain, emphasized at the seminar. “Besides proximal composition analysis, NIRS can be used for determining metabolizable energy, protein and phosphorous digestibility, and for the analysis of starch and non-starch polysaccharides, etc. It can be used to identify origin of soybean meals and to perform authenticity checks. In addition, heat damaged protein, fungal contamination and adulteration can be detected with modern pattern recognition software,” she added.

Dr. Roser Sala Paralles of Univeristy Autonoma in Barcelona, Spain recommended that participants adopt the feed microscopy as a fast and inexpensive quality control tool in their routine laboratory analysis, taking into account compliance with the specific raw materials used in a particular production process and available on the particular market and geographic location, specifically the geographic origin of available soybean meals in the Romanian market.
Prior to the seminar, USSEC organized visits to relevant feed mills and quality control, providing participants with the opportunity of knowing available analytical techniques and current practices used by the Romanian feed quality control labs, and the opportunity to discuss with quality control managers and nutritionists their main concerns on quality, variability and adulteration of soybean meal.

The individual meetings with laboratories at the feed mills and with nutritionists and researchers were informative and allowed participants to gain a better understanding of the Romanian feed and livestock’s actual reality and the potential for progress and expansion.
The Romanian feed and livestock industries clearly show the opportunities and potential that exists in this particular market for growth in livestock production and, consequently, the use of U.S. Soy products. Continuous promotional efforts to accompany the growth of this market and positioning of U.S. Soy in this market will be continued.