The Raghavan Report Asia’s Food Future: Disconnect between dietary changes and crop diversity by Raghavan (‘Ragha’) Sampathkumar As discussed previously, countries in Asia are facing the issue of double burden – malnutrition and obesity – at varying levels simultaneously. Matured economies such as Malaysia and Korea are seeing increasing levels of child obesity while India, Indonesia, China and Philippines are still facing huge issues of undernourishment. Nearly a third of all children in South East Asia remain malnourished and the majority of them are in these fast-growing middleincome countries. There is another category at the bottom that requires more serious attention with countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos PDR. While Asia’s economic growth is shifting the diets towards more protein (particularly from animal sources) and high value (e.g. horticultural crops), the region remains dependent on trade to meet its demand for feed raw materials. Although steps are taken in these countries by the policy makers to boost domestic production (e.g. corn in Indonesia), many times the efforts have unintended consequences and result in shortages and increased domestic prices. On one hand, this could be good for the farmers, but consumers bear the brunt as food prices inch up. However, similar to the geo-political moves that were discussed in the last column, policies often seem to be made in silos and mostly focused on achieving self-sufficiency through increased domestic production rather than having a holistic view of balancing it with international trade. Boosting domestic production (e.g. corn and soybean for animal feed) proves to be a rather difficult pursuit given that hundreds of millions of farmers in Asia are smallholders with around 1 ha or less on an average and do not have access to inputs including finance and risk management solutions. They remain distant and disconnected from markets and infrastructure such as storage, power and availability of quality inputs still remain big hurdles for them to respond to price signals and increase production. Lack of access to technology, from seed and to agricultural machinery, is yet another roadblock for the cultivators who are stuck with subsistence farming. Due to all the above reasons, grain productivity remains a concern since a vast majority of these smallholder farmers are producing at around a third of the optimum yield. But on the positive side, it reflects the need and the scope for improving productivity and incomes with innovations customised for the local conditions to help improve their livelihoods and nutritional status. Over the last few decades, Asian diets have become more similar to that of the West and there are serious concerns that a wide array of grains including sorghum, pearl millet, and finger millet are getting marginalised. Although there are isolated efforts in terms of mainstreaming these neglected (orphan) but highly nutritious foods, market dynamics and consumer education must be leveraged to drive crop diversification and rotation by the farmers. Niche market opportunities for these foods can be created based on their specific nutritional characteristics to address respective health issues (e.g. gluten allergy, diabetes or micronutrient deficiencies). With assured markets and stable prices, farmers will not only be able to diversify their cropping patterns, but importantly they can minimise losses due to price volatility of major staples, reduce negative externalities (e.g. soil degradation, pest and disease pressures due to monoculture), and contribute to diet diversity in the region. Raghavan (‘Ragha’) Sampathkumar is a seasoned food and agribusiness professional with 360 degree understanding of the complex political, socio-economic, environmental and cultural perspectives of the Agri-Food value chain. He has more than 13 years of experience working in various subsectors of food & agribusiness including agro commodities, international trade, agri-inputs, biotech, and animal nutrition sectors across Asia-Pacific. 20 | April 2017 - Milling and Grain
SARVAL announces £8m expansion to Nottingham processing facility
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ARVAL, the UK’s leading supplier of high-quality protein ingredients to the pet food market, has announced a major upgrade project to its animal by-product (ABP) processing facility in Nottingham. The £8m investment will see a purpose-built centre constructed to house dedicated processing equipment for specialist poultry products. The new lines will utilise the latest technology to process up to 3,000 tonnes of poultry every week. The state-ofthe-art sieving and clarification equipment will ensure the highest possible end product quality. The site is capable of processing more than 200,000 tonnes of poultry by-products every year. The resulting highquality poultry meat meal, hydrolysed feather meal and poultry fat will be used by some of the world’s leading pet food manufacturers in the production of premium product lines. Ashley Burdock, commercial manager at SARVAL, commented: “Using the latest technologies and state-of-the-art equipment, we provide leading pet food manufacturers worldwide with high-quality protein ingredients. We pride ourselves on setting the standards for traceability and ethical business practice, which is why 100% of our products are sourced from the UK. “Investing in a state-of-the-art poultry processing line at our Nottingham facility will enable us to increase total capacity, as well as respond to increasing customer demand for low-carbon, single meat meal.” The SARVAL Nottingham development project is due to be operational by October 2017. The site, which is located in Burton Joyce, will also continue to process more than 50,000 tonnes of hydrolysed feather meal every year.