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Brewer’s grains:
A sustainable feed for beef and dairy production
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by Michael Warren, Duynie, UK
he Brundtland Commission described sustainability as, “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Sustainability comprises of three pillars: economic, environmental, and social sustainability, also known as the three Ps: people, profit, and planet. Sustainability is growing in importance due to the pressures of the globe, the main pressure being the growing global population. The global population is currently in the region of 7.5 billion and it is projected to reach 10 billion people by 2050. So that’s 10 billion people in the same space that 7.5 billion currently inhabit. It is therefore vitally important that the globe’s resources are used more wisely. Using resources more wisely is what Duynie specialises in. Specific to livestock production, we look at replacing intensively produced feed with co-products and specifically with regard to ruminant livestock, we work tirelessly with our team of nutritionists to optimise production from homegrown forage. We always look to supplement production with co-products as opposed to simply replacing production with intensively produced products. It is vitally important that we, as a nation and an international community focus on sustainable ways of feeding the human population and one key way of improving global sustainability is through improving the sustainability of livestock production. One overly simplistic argument that is being heard more and more is to remove animal source food (ASF) completely from the diet. However, it can be argued that this could only ever be a personal choice and not a global movement. People that enjoy eating meat and drinking milk can and should be able to. Both meat and milk provide nutrients that would otherwise be unavailable to humans and it is because of this, that actually eating a diet with zero ASF is likely to be unsustainable for the human population. It is a far better argument to insist that people source their food with sustainability at the forefront of all they do.
The answer is co-product feeds
What are co-product feeds? They are products that are produced during the manufacturing of a core product. Co-products such as Brewers Grains have limited value in their current state as a food source for humans, and will always be produced during the manufacturing of beer. This pattern is relevant for most food manufacturing stories. The co-products then must be removed from the manufacturing site, in any instance there are two clear choices, either to send the product to waste, or seek relevant assurances and introduce it to the animal feed chain. It is as a result of this, that we can safely say that there is only really one sustainable choice! 68 | December 2017 - Milling and Grain