Feed Energy Sources for Livestock

155 Pages·1976·2.502 MB·English

by  Henry Swan and Dyfed Lewis (Auth.)

STUDIES IN THE AGRICULTURAL
AND FOOD SCIENCES
Feed Energy Sources
for Livestock
HENRY SWAN, PhD
and
DYFED LEWIS, DSc
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
University of Nottingham
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First published 1976
ISBN 0 408 70713 5
(c) The several contributors named in the list of contents, 1976
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Nutrition Conference for Feed Manufacturers, 9th,
University of Nottingham, 1975.
Feed energy sources for livestock.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Feeds-Congresses. 2. Animal nutrition-
Congresses. I. Swan, Henry. II. Lewis, Dyfed.
III. Title.
SF95.N87 1975 636.08'55 75-33983
ISBN 0-408-70713-5
Printed in Great Britain
by W & J Mackay Limited, Chatham
PREFACE
Following the 'protein' theme of the eighth conference, the ninth in
the series of Nutrition Conferences for Feed Manufacturers organised by
the University of Nottingham focussed attention on the question of
'Feed Energy Sources for livestock'.
The energy balance of farm livestock is a very important issue in
1975; in particular the industry is looking for ways and means of
minimising the cost of energy inputs.
The discussion was opened by a comprehensive paper on 'World
Grain Supplies'. In this important paper the author reviewed both the
long and short term future of grain supplies. This was followed by a
contribution on the 'Alternatives to Conventional Cereals', which
emphasised the narrow range of cereal substitutes.
'Molasses and Its By-Products' were discussed particularly in regard to
its use at low levels under UK circumstances. The topic of 'Cereal
Processing' was covered in an excellent review, which covered the sub-
ject from cold rolling to micronisation.
'Alkali Treatment and the Nutritive Value of Straws' was the topic
of an up-to-the-minute review by a group of Danish workers. This
session was closed by an important paper on 'Laboratory Methods for
Evaluating the Energy Value of Feedstuffs'.
The meeting was closed by an important group of papers which
highlighted the questions of 'Phosphorus for Ruminants', 'Selenium and
Vitamin Ε in Poultry Rations' and 'Rapeseed Meal in Pig and Poultry
Rations'.
All the papers are written in an informative and clear manner and
are likely to be of very great interest to all those working in the
field of the nutrition of farm livestock.
Nottingham H. Swan
D. Lewis
1
WORLD GRAIN SUPPLIES
L.J. WRIGHT
Pauls and Whites Ltd., Ipswich
The title of this chapter is an implicit recognition that any study of
the grain market is a sheer waste of time and effort, at least in
relation to price and availability, unless it is pursued on the basis of
world-wide evaluation. It is true that well before the last world war
some sort of worthwhile conclusion could be drawn from a survey of
the domestic situation within the UK alone, but that situation is gone,
never to be repeated. Any who doubted this have learned a most
salutary, and expensive, lesson through the calamitous effects of monu-
mental market upheavals over the last couple of years.
My credentials for considering the issues raised by this chapter are
commercial and not academic, and to this extent I apologise to any
who may rue the absence of that ordered and precise marshalling of
relevant facts, in balanced sequence, which is the hall-mark of the
economist who knows his job, and can go about it in his own way
and time. I have for the whole of my business career been directly
involved in the day by day activities of the grain market, and without
doubt it has greatly increased in its complexities at the trading level
in recent years. So many abrupt changes have frequently taken place
that for one to be out of close touch with it, even for a day, is to
be out of touch altogether. Against such a background it is difficult,
to say the least, for one who has the responsibility of major trading
decisions to find the necessary time and isolation to illustrate on paper
to his own satisfaction, still more to that of critical appraisers, those
reasonings from within the hard pressed information centre of his own
mind which are his own assumptions of logic, and those which promote
the policies which he pursues in his buying and selling, for good or
ill.
Mankind has been obsessed with the subject of grain supply from
the very dawn of history, and not surprisingly, because in a final
sense cereals are vital to life itself as the main basic source of food
to the vast mass of humanity. Excoriating famines down the centuries
have left ghastly scars on the corporate body and the mind of the
human race. Even now, while we are discussing the subject in com-
fortable security, it is indisputably and wretchedly true that somewhere
in Ethiopia, somewhere in the Indian subcontinent, somewhere in the
1
2 World grain supplies
vast Saharan sprawl, people are losing their last frail hold on the thread
of life because there is no grain to eat. It is true that we may have
experienced the odd qualm about our own prospects of supply, though
only in degree, during the market panic of a year ago, and certainly
we have devoted more thought to the subject in the last eighteen
months than in the whole of the thirty years since the end of the
Second World War, but we have not yet been threatened ourselves as
we still might be, should nature itself not co-operate in the present
urgent measures aimed at alleviating an extremely serious supply
situation in world-wide terms.
I am, I must say, profoundly thankful that my commission is to
speak about the issue of cereal supply, and I have not been asked to
forecast the pattern of prices over the next decade, though I imagine
you will expect some comment on this. Some such endeavours have
been publicly made, including a worthy effort in both short and long
term effect by Sturgess (1974). It may be thought that the question
of price is of secondary importance to the essential of ensuring supplies
in UK terms, but we might be at a disadvantage apropos other buyers
on the world market if supplies remained scarce and our own economic
situation worsened substantially from its already very precarious position.
I intend, for my own instruction and thought, and I hope for your
interest, (1) to take a look at the developments in cereal production
and disposal, both in local and world wide terms, over the period of
the last twenty five years; (2) to consider the extraordinary concatenation
of circumstances which marked the crisis situation, by no means yet
assuaged, in 1972/73 and (3) to attempt an assessment of supply and
demand for the next eighteen months, with some longer term reflec-
tions.
1946-1971
World population increased during this period by approximately 1.4
thousand million from 2.3 to 3.7 thousand million, equal to a rise of
60%. During the same period the production of all grains, including
rice, rose from roughly 553 million to around 1,000 million tons, or
an equivalent of 80% (Commonwealth Secretariat, 1973). The progress
in the last three years, i.e. to 1974, has been a further expansion of
population to 3.83 thousand million, and of grain production to an
estimated 1.18 thousand million tons. The excess growth rate of
cereal production over population increase during these twenty five
years is not, however, reflected by a similar increase in end of season
grain stocks in the main exporting countries, the figure in 1971 being
only about 14 million tons above the 1950 level and no more than
6 million tons above the average for the period (Commonwealth Secre-
tariat, 1973). The answer is not far to seek, for it lies in the massively
increased needs of a livestock industry which has itself expanded very
greatly in line with an almost universal rise in living standards over
these years. It also includes 'soil banking' action in the United States,
which has imposed limits on output there in the last decade.
L.J. Wright 3
In reviewing this era, it is instructive to observe the pattern of
progress in production of the main grains (rice excluded) in certain
countries {Table 1.1).
Table 1.1 Production of the main grains (rice excluded)
Production Production Increase
1946/47 1971/72 (%)
(million tons) (million tons)
United Kingdom 7.05 14.6 107.1
USA 153.4 228.5 48.9
USSR 66.6 166.0 149.2
India 10.1 32.1 217.8
Pakistan 4.3 8.4 95.3
These figures become even more interesting when compared with the
approximate relative areas sown in the same years (Table 1.2).
Table 1.2 Approximate relative areas of the main grains sown (rice
excluded)
Acreage Acreage Increase/decrease
1946/47 1971/72 (%)
(thousand acres) (thousand acres)
United Kingdom 7.2 9.1 + 26.3
USA 198.6 137.6 - 30.7
USSR 198.8 213.6 + 7.5
India 38.3 65.3 + 70.4
Pakistan 11.8 21.6 + 83.0
When reduced to overall yield per acre, the broad picture presented in
Table 1.3 emerges.
Table 1.3 Overall yield per acre of the main grains (rice excluded)
Yield Yield Increase
1946/47 1971/72 (%)
(tons) (tons)
United Kingdom 0.98 1.60 63.2
USA 0.77 1.66 115.5
USSR 0.33 0.77 133.3
India 0.26 0.49 88.4
Pakistan 0.36 0.39 8.3
These are only generalised comparisons, hiding the effects of changes
in the mix of acreage between competing cereals (e.g. the USA increase
is largely due to a jump from 0.9 to 2.2 tons per acre in maize
yields) but they serve to illustrate both the utter dominance of the
United States as the main granary for the world market, and the
parlous situation of the teeming millions of 'have-nots' in the world,
as represented by India and Pakistan.
It is of course a fact beyond dispute that substantial increases both
in the acreage of straw crops, and in plant density on the ground,
4 World grain supplies
provide conditions wherein new types or races of disease appear and
flourish. The history of cereal growing in this country bears abundant
testimony to this over the last twenty five years, and we have seen
the menace on a hitherto unknown scale of such ailments as yellow
rust, mildew and eyespot, with capabilities of seriously reducing the
levels of yield. Perhaps this feature was more than anything else
responsible for the levelling off of grain yields in the UK after the
sharp rise of the 1950s, to the extent that the 1960s were marked
more or less by a plateau of yield. The line has now taken a very
encouraging upward turn again, a tribute in particular to the dedicated
application of plant breeders to the vital business of improving cereal
seed performance, to the seed trade itself in its high standards of
operation, to those agro-chemical specialists who nowadays play so
vital a part in protecting the plant and its environment, and of course
also to the growers themselves in their readiness to keep up with the
adoption of technical improvements in both growing and harvesting
their crops.
This is I think sufficient comment to serve as a backcloth to our
discussion, and I move on to a consideration of the crucial two years
beginning with a cloak and dagger visit of Russian trade officials to
New York, after which 'nobody appreciated the significance of what
the Russians had done ... until later' (Trager, 1974).
1972-1974
It is highly unlikely that there are any among us who have not been,
in one way or another, directly or indirectly caught up in the march
of events in the area of commodity supply and demand, together with
the associated frightening and unprecedented rise in prices which we
have seen over the last two years in world markets. Vivid and painful
though this experience has been, we can nonetheless marvel anew at
the extraordinary combination and fusion of events. The situation which
obtained was compounded of crop failure in large areas of the globe,
leading to massive import demands; of balance of payment difficulties
in major currency areas, resulting in monetary and equity weakness and
a flight into basic commodities - hard or soft; of the first major
international scarcities in peacetime of raw materials for industry, a
reflection of the rapid rise world-wide in the demand for consumer
goods; and, last but by no means least, of an energy crisis which came
like a bolt out of the blue when the Arab states united in political
action and quadrupled the price of oil. These facts are all well known,
and perhaps we only need to refer to them in order to remind our-
selves of the lesson they impart, which all of us ignore only at our
peril.
The events in question mark a watershed in the history of provision
for human need, a point of no return in the story of survival, an end
to the concept of inexhaustible and squanderable resources. From now
on man must, in national and international terms, budget and plan
with detailed forethought and care, in order to ensure his own continued
L.J. Wright 5
existence as a civilised being in these latter years of the twentieth
century, and on into the next millennium. Especially and vitally he
must resolve the problem of population increase; he must contain and
then reduce the menace of pollution; he must identify and conserve
to the utmost the precious reserves of natural wealth; he must develop
new sources of energy; he must irrigate as he has never irrigated
before, so that the desert can in fact 'blossom as the rose'; and he
must maximise production from our fields and forests of all those
things vital to the maintenance of life itself. Unless this lesson is
learned and acted upon now, while we still have time, it will be
learned too late.
Future historians may well conclude that the final straw which
broke the back of the cereal market in 1972 stemmed from another
major event of unquestionably historic importance. It was prompted
by a political decision, long delayed and perhaps finally forced
upon a hard pressed Soviet administration, which at last took
account of butter as well as guns in order to improve the living stan-
dards of its vast and increasing population. Pursuit of this policy
brought the USSR, at a time of almost universal drought and poor
harvests in 1972 (except in North America and North West Europe),
into the world market as the buyer of the largest tonnage of contracted
cereals in all time, several times greater than anything before, and
almost 30 million tons in all. It was noted that 'the vital essential
of life had been thrown into chaos on the day some Russians came
to New York to buy American grain' (Trager, 1974). With China and
India, and other lesser but equally anxious purchasers of cereals, she
overnight removed the comfortable buffer of surplus reserves, depleting
them to the sobering level of no more than three weeks' supply in
terms of universal consumption, and started a spiral in prices that has
almost trebled values for wheat, barley and maize and which, so far,
shows only slow signs of recession.
This period coincided with the entry of the UK into membership
of the European Economic Community, with the five year transitional
period in the agricultural sector beginning for most commodities in
February 1973. At that time our principal worry in so far as cereals
were concerned related to the undertaking to raise our support prices
for grains by annual steps of around £3 per ton, and a final equal
step on December 31st 1977, so as to reach parity with the EEC
system by January 1st 1978. Only our cereal growers were attracted
by this prospect, while livestock producers were, to say the least,
apprehensive of the effects on the long term well-being of their trade.
However, within twelve months the impossible happened, and world
prices soared above even EEC target prices, let alone the lower threshold
and intervention levels and, despite subsequent increases in official
Common Market levels of support, the comparisons in Table 1.4 could
be drawn in December 1974.
Strange though it may seem, in the light of earlier apprehensions, we
have been and still are protected to some degree, by the EEC cereals
policies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and we ought to
6 World grain supplies
Table 1.4 Cereal prices in December 1974 (HGCA, 1974)
Basic EEC Basic EEC Non EEC
intervention threshold CIF Tilbury Jan.
Wheat £60.76 £65.61 £103.65 (US N/S)
Maize £48.76 £57.89 £ 73.30 (US 3YC)
be thankful for it. Whatever our criticisms may be, both of the CAP
itself and of those super-technocrats who moulded it and continue to
determine its application, the simple fact remains that only prompt and
effective action in the imposition both of export levies on an effective
scale and of a tendering system of implementing them has prevented
what would have been the inevitable alternative, i.e. a rapid drain of
French grain on to the world market instead of into the deficiency
areas of the Community itself. These measures have unquestionably
not only reduced the degree of EEC buying on the world market,
but have also tended to maintain internal Community prices at a much
lower level than would otherwise have been the case. To what extent
this system of control can be extended to the future is a subject of
its own (Sturgess, 1974). EEC prices may themselves need to reflect
a closer relationship with world values and such a relationship might
affect the predictability of actual prices in the market place- and
hence the value and utilisation of cereal substitutes.
The two years in review include, from the point of view of the
trade in the UK, the costly introduction and cumbrous implementation
of the Scheme for Denaturing of Wheat, a diabolically ingenious method
for sustaining the unsustainable, whereby farmers were encouraged to
grow wheat at a high basic milling price instead of feed grains, in the
full knowledge that much of the production would have to find a feed
grain outlet at a much lower basic price. They therefore paid hand-
somely, up to £5/6 per ton, to denature the wheat rather than encourage
the inevitable alternative of massive sales into intervention with all the
associated costs. The trade in the UK has had to put up with some
pretty odd Governmental schemes over the years, but nothing as hare-
brained as this phenomenon from Brussels, which in the area of
official measures in this country has added to its dubious notoriety
by achieving the fastest disappearing act of all time. Within twelve
months compass it was adopted at virtually the full EEC rate, was
sharply reduced within six months, reduced again and then finally and
abruptly cut off and put into a state of suspension in limbo to the
frustration of a trade which was forced to adopt it at a direct cost
in equipment running well into six figures. Some of the obligatory
equipment was still being delivered to participants when the coup de
grace was delivered from Brussels, while many firms who had made
forward purchases of wheat on a calculation of denaturing premiums
had to foot that part of the bill themselves. Whatever decisions may
be made in the future interpretation of the requirements of the cereals
sector in CAP terms, I profoundly hope that the Commission will
spare us from any reintroduction of the burden of wheat denaturing.
LJ. Wright 7
This issue was of course only one aspect of the adoption of EEC
Cereals Regulations, which in company with other CAP requirements
have necessitated the establishment of the Intervention Board for Agri-
cultural Produce (IBAP) in this country as the agent (under our own
government) of EEC purpose in production and marketing. Its cereal
function is principally, and thus far, vested in the Home Grown
Cereals Authority which, although a statutory body, is fully represen-
tative of all major points of view in grain production and marketing
and to boot retains a substantial measure of independence both in
itself and in its conclusions. While there is a CAP which demands
observance, and (barring withdrawal from Europe) we shall be bound
by it, revised or not, for years to come, that Policy will affect trade
in grain - EEC or third country - at every stage, and we would do
well to ensure that its application in local terms remains the
responsibility of the HGCA.
One could continue at some length on the effects of the 1972/74
period on cereals supplies. Inevitably the price explosion has acted as
a fillip to farmer growers, but more of this shortly. Beyond this,
other factors have played a part in denying the full application of
that part of EEC policy represented by the phrase 'Community
Preference', which should mean that in practice it is normally cheaper
on balance to buy from within the Nine than from outside. This
praiseworthy objective, supported as it is by a carefully contrived sys-
tem of Monetary Compensatory Amounts and currency coefficients in
order to preserve a proper balance of equality across the internal bor-
ders of the Common Market has, unfortunately, foundered again and
again on the shifting sands of diversity of monetary movement
between the relative parities of the Nine, especially of those inside
the 'Snake' and those, including the UK, outside it, to the extent
that it has frequently been easier and cheaper for us to buy from out-
side rather than inside the Community. The effects of this complex
situation were illustrated by the following conclusion reached at a
COCERAL meeting in Brussels on December 5th 1974. On that day:
in Germany, maize was cheaper than wheat
in the UK, wheat was cheaper than maize
in France, USA maize was cheaper than French maize
Not least of our difficulties is a continuing refusal by the Commission
to permit forward prefixation of Monetary Compensatory Amounts on
trade between member states. At a time when third country imports
are levy free, and the pricing factor therefore less complicated, the
third country seller may find his competitiveness easier than the regu-
lations intended it to be.
1975 and the Future
A fair amount of time has been spent tracing the march of supply and
demand over the last three decades, and on my part this is in order