USSEC Country Director - India Dr. P. E. Vijay Anand received an Award of Appreciation at the Compound Livestock Feed Manufacturers Association (CLFMA) of India’s 55^th National Symposium on September 26at Hotel Kempenski, Delhi.  The theme of this national symposium was “Facilitating Growth of the Animal Husbandry Sector.”  Dr. Anand was honoured by government dignitaries at a gathering of approximately 500 industry decision makers and stakeholders.

“Crush for Meal” is a USSEC initiative in which Dr. Anand and his team have worked with Indian soy crushers to improve soy manufacturing processes, improve meal quality, deliver value and treat it as a co-product, along with oil.  These efforts have helped develop strong and reliable domestic markets for the crushers and the animal feed millers.  Several progressive poultry integrators were also guided into the Crush for Meal initiative, helping to secure soy meal for their current and future operations.  Creative trade platforms such as Soy Buyers -Sellers Meets and Soy Debate Forums, which focused on bridging gaps between soy manufacturers and soy users facilitated exchange of knowledge and translated into business deliverables.  Regular analysis, forecasts and data dissemination on soy utilization helped the industries plan their short term as well as long term strategies.  All stakeholders in the soy and animal feed industry stand to benefit from these improvements made in the Indian industry.
Dr. Anand and his USSEC team also identified gaps in the aquaculture value chain which guided the effective transformation of the traditional fish feed industry into a modern compounded feed based industry.  This change helped establish the installed feed milling capacity in India from a zero position in 2006 to its current 1.3 million tons/year.  Ongoing work and strategies on building demand for better feed capacity utilization and popularization of processed/value added soy-fed fish will help the aquaculture industry stabilize and grow further.  The citation asserted that there were evident national benefits derived through USSEC’s feed-based technologies.  The developments resulted in a lower usage of nutritionally poor feed ingredients for growing fish.  These advancements have improved water quality and saved feedstuffs which could otherwise be used for terrestrial animal farming.  The development of the feed industry has spurred multiple business benefits in terms of increased equipment supplies, employment, opportunities for feed additives, commodities and opportunities for diversification of businesses.
The national body and all industry stakeholders congratulated Dr. Anand and his USSEC team and expressed that they look forward to more win-win situations in future.  In efficiently executing the core responsibilities of USSEC for increasing the consumption of soy in animal and aquaculture feeds, Dr. Anand has brought about significant industry changes in India that have helped the entire animal feed industry in various forms of business development and stability.