Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Improved Animal Feed:
Challenges for Commercial Use
Pascal Tillie,* Koen Dillen and
Emilio RodrÃguez-Cerezo
European Commission - Joint Research Centre - Institute for
Prospective Technological Studies, Seville, Spain
area of land and by improving the rate of
conversion of vegetable calories into animal
calories. Biotechnology of ers new possi-
bilities for the improvement of plants, such
as organ-specii c expression of proteins or
expression of characters derived from other
species, etc. h e potential benei ts of
genetically modii ed (GM) plants in the i eld
of animal nutrition are: improving the
nutritional value of feed; reducing manure
excretion through a higher net energy value;
and lowering nitrogen and phosphorus
pollution (Cunningham, 2005). Here, we
review the pipeline for those GM events that
involve potential benei ts for the animal
sector and that are likely to be commercial-
ized in the future. h is chapter focuses
exclusively on quality traits, as they directly
address the nutritional ei ciency of feed. We
also describe the prospects they of er and
the challenges that remain to be addressed.
h is chapter is organized according to the
main traits currently under research for
animal nutrition: low phytate content,
amino acid rich, improved digestibility and
enhanced oil content (see also Chapter 7).
One of the consequences of economic
development is that people consume more
animal products per capita - the so-called
'Westernization' of diets. As this goes hand
in hand with a growing world population,
the demand for animal products has
increased by 51% in the past 20 years
(FAOSTAT, 2013) and will keep increasing at
a signii cant rate in the near future. h is
translates into an even faster increasing
demand for agricultural crops, since the
conversion rate of vegetable calories to
animal calories is, on average, higher than 3
to 1. Estimates show that about one-quarter
of plant calories is used to feed animals
(Chaumet
et al
., 2011). Increasing feed
ei ciency is thus an essential objective to
relax the pressure on arable land due to
animal product consumption. At farm level,
nutritional ei ciency is an important
determinant of farmers' proi ts. But it also
goes beyond farm economics, since increas-
ing ei ciency in resource use would also
release the pressure on fossil energy and
biological resources, as well as reducing
some of the negative environmental
externalities associated with livestock
production.
Plant breeding can increase the ei ciency
of livestock production at two levels: by
raising the number of calories produced by
Pipeline Survey
h e information that is provided in this
chapter, in order to describe the pipeline of
