Farmscape for October 31, 2017

Improved feed manufacturing efficiency can boost the profitability of crops and the livestock that consume them.
"Increasing Profitability of the Livestock Sector Through Feed Processing" will be discussed when Sask Pork hosts Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium November 14 and 15 in Saskatoon.
Dr. Rex Newkirk, an associate professor with the University of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Research Chair in Feed Processing Technology responsible for the Canadian Feed Research Centre at North Battleford, explains normal processing includes receiving the grain, formulating the diets, grinding, mixing, possibly pelleting and shipping and improvements can be made at each step.

Clip-Dr. Rex Newkirk-University of Saskatchewan:
Even just on the receiving side of things, one of the things we have in our plant is the ability to measure the quality of the grain using inline NIR so we can look for toxins on the way by.
Through the grinding stages there's all kinds of things you can do to optimize efficiency.
A fair bit is done in pork so we know a fair bit about what the ideal particle size is there but still trying to achieve a consistent quality through a wide range of grains can pose challenges so we have the ability to look at different grinding methods.
Mixing and mixing efficiency is important so you don't get segregation of your important nutrients.
Pelleting, there's lots of options around pelleting to improve quality.
For example we have a conditioner retentioner where we can kill microorganisms in the grain.
We also can do post processing applications of fats and enzymes.
We can extrude products and generate novel ingredients for livestock, for example for young piglets where they need higher digestibility.
Then we also have some additional capacities in our plant that are rather new, for example steam explosion where we can basically take fibrous materials and render them digestible.
That's our plan.
We've got vacuum coating where we can incorporate ingredients into a finished product.
There's a wide range of things that can be done through the process.

Dr. Newkirk says the part of the Canadian Feed Research Centre's objective is to improve both efficiency and consistency.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork