New Year, new ideas Clifford Spencer, Goodwill Ambassador, NEPAD and Chairman, Milling4Life As the New Year starts we enter a time when old habits and ideas are often changed, and new and hopefully better ones are put in their place. In the world of milling perhaps this could be seen as an opportunity for new standards to be pursued in terms of feeding people, and new crops to enter the miller’s world and new technologies to be developed to process them. In the animal and fish feeding stuffs world, this process would afford an opportunity for developing countries, such as those supported by the Milling4Life charity, to make considerable progress in the planning of the provision of plentiful healthy and nutritious diets for their citizens. As the world requirement for protein in particular, rises to meet population growth, many young lives will depend on getting these vital areas of nutrition right in future actions and long term planning. Pursuing the most efficient forms of animal production such as aquaculture will be key, and thus the feeding stuffs being created and their processing need to be fit for purpose. Our Deputy Chairman Roger Gilbert has a lifetime experience of the feeding stuffs industry, including him fulfilling the role of an industry game changer and in him aiding the introduction of industry leading ideas and thinking. He has very clear views on the necessity and the importance of a well-developed feeding stuffs processing industry, right through to matters of national welfare, development and progress. His data crunching and analysis of national progress of the world’s countries, makes for impressive reading and more importantly yields vital conclusions on what is needed particularly in terms of feed output. I believe many young lives will depend upon his thinking becoming ‘’de rigeur” for developing countries planning and leadership. Indeed, this conclusion was part of the background to me taking the important personal decision to agree to chair this charity and moves such as attending meetings at the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome with Roger, in discussions with senior figures. From a survey conducted by one of his industrial contacts in December 2015, Roger has analysed and presented data of estimated compound feed production - from 130 countries 30 | January 2018 - Milling and Grain
gathered via a sales force of 600 visiting 31,000 feed mills globally. Although feed terms can vary from country to country and do not include forages, the translation of these results by Roger makes for a significant change of thinking on feed outputs, trends, outputs and resultant economic development. In particular, he highlights the vital role a robust feed industry must play to meet a modern world’s food demand. As we need to feed 9.5 billion people by 2050, the figures show there is much to be achieved and many exciting new developments needed in this great life giving industry. There are currently 7.3 billion people on the planet today and feed mills produce 995 million tonnes of formulated compound feed annually. That means the average person enjoys food produced from livestock and fish that consumed 133.6kg of feed. Roger’s conclusion is that this is the figure every country should aim for in order to achieve a ‘benchmark’ standard of economic development for its citizens. The saying ‘we are what we eat’ has never had greater meaning! In this vein, for 2018 a number of projects will be considered on different continents by the Milling4Life board of trustees. These projects will look at different crop feed stocks, different ways of farming them, different storage and processing technologies and different forms of finance and production set ups from co-operatives through to high level corporate finance arrangements. What is important in all of these considerations is the potential for success and the lifting of poor and disadvantaged people out of poverty. So over the next 12 months you will begin to hear of potential projects and ideas that Milling4Life will look to promote, in order to fulfil our ambitious aims in this vital area of the charity’s work. One of these potential projects involves boosting aquaculture production in Africa; others will look at agri-food chains across the developing world. In this respect the United Nations Foundation mandated organisation that I lead is entering an information exchange project involving information and technology transfer between the West, China and the Far East and hopefully this work will provide Roger and our trustees team with further new data and ideas to consider. I wish all the readers of this great industry-leading magazine a very Happy and Prosperous New Year and very much look forward to raising your interest and support for the Milling4Life charity’s work in 2018.