Global Agrarian – Opening Asia

Asian markets have been a goal for Agrarian. There, swine are a major production species and a number of controlled research projects have been completed to address concerns in Thailand and other SE Asia countries for this species. Let me share just a few highlights of that activity.

Beginning with a very small trial at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, investigations progressed onto large commercial swine operations that offered research-capable units. Several studies were completed with sows, the latest involving 250 sows divided between control (CON) and NDC (Nutrisound Dry Concentrate, our primary mycotoxin mitigating feed additive). Health, reproductive efficiency, litter size, livability of offspring, etc. were all favorably improved by NDC. But to give just one prime result that has implications for other lactating animals, here is a summary of metrics tested on colostrum: abc Values in a row with different superscripts are significantly different (P<0.05)

While volatile fatty acids have great impact, butyrate is recognized for its positive influence on balancing the gut microbiome to improve over-all health of animals. Many companies offer products specifically to increase butyrate production! In this study, NDC outperformed the CON pigs and also the antibiotic and enzyme treatments. Similarly, fecal E. coli was reduced by nearly 3 log cycles by NDC and the antibiotic. NDC was a direct and complete replacement for a now prohibited growth-promoting antibiotic and one of the enzymatic approaches to growth promotion!

As a result of this research, Agrarian Solutions is now shipping containers of NDC to Thailand to our distributor there, Sinotrade Technology Co., for use by the second largest feed mill in the region, Betagro, for swine. New inroads are being established with two other mills and trials are now underway for its use in dairy animals in that country.

** NDC highly significantly different from CON (P<0.01)

Similar results were obtained for lactose and non-fat solids in colostrum and for all colostrum IgG collections during the first 24 hours post-parturition. Piglets from NDC sows also surpassed Controls for gain, survival, and lowered shedding of Gram-negative bacteria. Our attention then turned to weanling pigs. The data below are from a study with 30 pigs/treatment and 4 treatments: CON, CLT (colistin sulfate [Polymyxin E], BLM (bromelain [a growth promoting enzyme]), and NDC. Again, I just share a short sample of our results.

¹ Dr. Dachrit Nilubol, a highly recognized swine virologist, served as the principal investigator in these trials.