Feed and Genetics

The global commodity market is turbulent due to rising costs of feed ingredients such as grain, maize, wheat and soy but als fishmeal and fish oil. With feed being responsible for at least 50% of the production cost of an average shrimp farmer, global commodity prices have great implications for the formulation of shrimp feed and for the cost of feed sold to the farmer. What are the most recent developments and what is the outlook for the short and mid-term future in terms of the prices of the main shrimp feed ingredients?

Speaker: Carlos Mera, Executive Director Agri-Commodities Markets Research, Rabobank

Feed ingredient prices and availability, and diversification of shrimp farming systems means that shrimp feed formulation is continuously changing. Simultaneously shrimp farmers increasingly adapt software and hardware that helps them to optimise their feed management. What are the main trends in terms of shrimp feed formulation and feed management and what does this mean for shrimp production dynamics?

Speaker: Alex Obach, R&D Director, Skretting

Panellists:

Alex Obach, Innovation Director, Skretting

Chen Yuchi, Director, Evergreen Conglomerate

Raul Fernando Garcia Abad, Commercial Director, Inve Aquaculture

Victor Suresh, Technical Director, Growel Feeds Private Limited

Petter M. Johannessen, Director General, IFFO The Marine Ingredients Organisation

Moderated by: Ronnie Tan

In animal husbandry, genetics are at the start of everything. While previously focussing mainly on balancing growth and disease resistance, companies are now using advanced technologies to produce specific lines suited for specific production systems. This results in highly disease resistant lines for production systems that lack bio-security, and fast growth lines for production systems that are highly biosecure. Also, while previously focusing on resistance or tolerance to specific diseases, breeding companies now tend to focus also on overall robustness. How will genetics influence shrimp production volatility and the risks of disease outbreaks?

Speaker: Robbert Blonk, Director R&D, Hendrix Genetics

Novel ingredient producers such as algae oil, insect meal and single cell protein aim to replace conventional ingredients such as fishmeal and oil which are increasingly scarce and criticised for their impact on the environment. While the costs of conventional ingredients are rising, some of the novel ingredient producers are yet to reach scale and prices might come down making these ingredients sooner price competitive than we had expected until recently. With commodity prices rapidly rising, will the transition to novel feed ingredients accelerate and what remain the barriers to acceptance?

Speaker: Kevin Fitzsimmons, Co-Founder, 3F

Panellists:

Karim Kurmaly, CEO, Veramaris

Clement Ray, CEO, Innovafeed

Alan Shaw, CEO, Calysta

Henrik Aarestrup, VP Latam, Shrimp and Hatchery, Biomar Group

Kevin Fitzsimmons, Co-Founder, 3F

Ben Weis, Aquaculture Manager, Tesco

Moderated by: Ronnie Tan