Little decline in last year’s feed production

The full report of the survey will be released at the end of the month. The 2014 Global Feed Survey covers the analysis of over 31,000 feed mills in 130 countries. It has been conducted now for three consecutive years, with increasing accuracy as the work evolves and expands into a sporadically-documented worldwide industry. Alltech gathers data on compound feed production through information obtained in partnership with local feed associations and its own sales team.

“In 2012 and 2013, the feed survey revealed small, steady increases in feed production across the board,” said Aidan Connolly, Chief Innovation Officer of Alltech and director of Alltech’s annual Global Feed Tonnage Survey. “This year, however, we have observed a slight decline overall. Among the top five feed producers (China, USA, Brazil, Mexico and Spain) there was a slight down trend in total tonnage, however some of the smaller countries have had remarkable growth.”

There are a number of factors that contribute to this, the main one being that advances in feed technology continue to improve its efficiency.  Farmers today can produce more protein with less feed. Smaller countries are beginning to see the positive impacts of the technologies that larger countries have been using for some time now.

In 2015, Alltech predict that larger countries will continue to produce more animal proteins (an increase of approximately 1%) and consume feed at roughly the same rate as in 2014. Smaller countries, though, will continue their upward momentum at a faster rate, and will continue to grow throughout the next 12 months, which should lead to overall growth, somewhere in the region of approximately 1% – 2% overall.