USSEC recently provided technical assistance to livestock and poultry producers in the El Cibao region and in the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.  Carlos Campabadal, Pedro Pablo Lora and Fradbelin Escarraman visited nine facilities that utilize U.S. soybean meal for feed production.  At these poultry and swine production operations, they discussed and gave recommendations on various topics such as the protein content of soybean meal, the use of soybean oil in animal nutrition, issues with yellow grease, the use of Near Infrared (NIR) technique for amino acids analysis for feed formulation and the quality of ingredients for balanced feeds, among other topics.  Diets for livestock and poultry were also reviewed and formulated.

This same team of experts also visited the largest commercial feed mill in the Dominican Republic, which produces more than 12,000 metric tons (MT) of feed per month.  The feed mill would like to begin producing tilapia feed, yet they had many concerns and faced some problems with the manufacturing of this type of feed.  USSEC consultants discussed these concerns and gave recommendations to overcome this company’s tilapia feed manufacturing issues, provided the nutrient requirements to produce a good quality tilapia feed, reviewed formulas and made several adjustments.  The production of tilapia feed by this feed manufacturer will increase imports of U.S. soybean meal by the Dominican Republic.