Special funding of more than £2.2m, just awarded to Scotland’s Rural College, means three exciting new research facilities can be built, offering real opportunities for innovative progress in livestock feeding efficiency and meat eating quality in Britain.
The finance, from the Government’s Innovate UK Fund, was won by CIEL (Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock), an innovative consortium of 12 world-class animal science research institutes, including SRUC, which work in partnership with industry, to raise the levels of food production and quality.
Work on the three projects will begin soon. The first will be one the few feed mills in Europe designed specifically to manufacturer experimental pig and poultry diets under accurate and precise conditions. Another is a laboratory equipped to develop faster ways of measuring meat eating quality with the information used in animal breeding programmes. The third facility will utilise the latest sensor technology to make sheep production more efficient by identifying animals best able to convert the feed they eat into marketable meat.
Dr Mark Young, Head of Innovation for CIEL, says: “These investments add to what has already been committed by government through CIEL into upgrading and developing research facilities and equipment across the animal science research institutions. They provide opportunities for industry to more strongly engage with these groups to develop innovations that will lead to improved systems for managing livestock efficiently and producing better quality meat, milk and egg products”
Outlining the significance of the experimental feed mill SRUC Professor Nick Sparks, Animal and Veterinary Sciences Group Manager, explained that the development of new feed ingredients, especially enzymes and micro-nutrients, often requires making small batches of feed under conditions that guarantee a homogenous mix with the components added at very low concentrations. The processing conditions, such as temperature, must be recorded accurately. Combining these requirements is something many feed manufacturers struggle to achieve.
“There are very few facilities available in Europe able to achieve what we are aiming for in this new unit,” he said. “ When combined with the new poultry growing facilities that CIEL and SRUC are investing in and the pig and poultry facilities already existing in the CIEL consortium, the new feed manufacturing mill gives our pig and poultry industry world-leading research capability. Apart from studying the addition of enzymes and micro-nutrients this capability will allow us to really investigate the use of home grown proteins in diets as well as new varieties of cereals. So, apart from offering a boost to the pig and poultry sectors, this investment has the potential to reduce import bills and offer new market opportunities for Britain’s arable sector.”
As an expert on the use of genomes of farm livestock SRUC Professor Mike Coffey recognises how livestock breeders can use research from the other two projects to raise productivity and quality.
“For generations breeders have been able to select for growth, yield, colour or weight. Less obvious traits, like eating quality or feed efficiency are far harder to identify and select for. But our knowledge of the genome, when linked to the right data, collected in real time, would inform breeding selections or help develop production systems offering genuine economic and environmental gains.”
Using advanced, automated feeders linked to individual electronic animal identity systems researchers will record many measurements of the individual feed intake of mature ewes and maturing lambs and relate that to their growth rate, feed intake and carcass quality. It will inform programmes selecting the female blood lines to pass on these reduced cost traits to future flocks. Particular attention will be given to maintenance costs of mature ewes since the national ewe flock is a major consumer of livestock food and land area to produce it. It is estimated that raising feed efficiency this way could save the UK sheep industry £30m.
Commenting on the meat quality work Mike Coffey said:
“The ability to select for improved meat quality will help position British beef on home and international markets and also help protect our producers from cheap low quality imports. Assessing qualities like succulence, taste and texture within the abattoir at line speed has been an elusive goal for many processors. This new facility will enable in-house meat quality measurements to be taken and calibrated leading to an overall better meat eating experience for consumers.
“Our goal with these investments is Innovation,” says Dr Young. “True innovation will be new ways of doing things that are widely adopted by industry. That will come if they are demonstrably more profitable, more efficient or make farming and food production more sustainable. Industry is the key partner in CIEL if we are to make this happen.
