Title : Technology and the future of pig nutrition
Abstract:
Technology has accelerated the development of pig nutrition as we have moved from formulating with 10 nutrients to now up to 200 nutrients. Precision has replaced the art of nutrition as diagnostic tools such as NIR are now common place in most feed mills. In-depth diagnostic testing has led to a knowledge of the role of the increasing number of nutrients and research has elucidated their role in pig nutrition. The development of enzymes has revolutionised the understanding of digestibility of fibre and how to utilise it effectively. This has also highlighted the interactions between nutrients and how that can influence the performance of the pig. The explosion of the ‘omics has allowed and a greater understanding of the subtleties of the interactions between the environment, the feed and the pig. Our concept of the environment has been expanded to include the biome of the gastrointestinal tract. This interaction is the new frontier in pig and animal science and will be the way in which we deliver pig nutrition and health without antibiotics into the future. The combination of the new technology with the understanding of metabolism is the key to the development of pig nutrition and transcribing that to other species.
Audience Take Away:
• Evaluation of the new technologies developed in the pig Industry can refine the theory of nutrition in man and other animals
• The use of the pig to look at human food concepts allows a more definitive adoption of technologies due to the larger scale of experimentation
• How utilization of human diagnostic technologies can be used in pig nutrition which may widen the scope of those technologies back to human nutrition
