Just when they hoped the worst might be over, China 's Jilin province is investigating yet another incident of melamine contaminating eggs, the fifth such report since late October. In early December, Hong Kong 's Centre for Food Safety discovered excessive melamine concentrations in eggs supplied by Jiayuan Farm Produce and By-Products Trading Company.
It found 4.7ppm of melamine in the eggs, which is approximately 80 percent higher than the legally allowed limit of melamine in Hong Kong, the US , EU and many other jurisdictions. Earlier, starting in October, melamine was detected in egg samples from Dalian province, at a food processing plant in Gong'an County and in egg tarts exported to Japan , among other cases.
FEED Business Asia Vol.24 Jan/Feb 2009
Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Foods (CP) has deployed an RFID tracking system throughout its pork processing plant. This allows it to track its meat processing from a whole live hog’s arrival at the slaughterhouse to packaged pork landing on the store shelf.After tagged live hogs are slaughtered, they are placed on hang rails carrying smart RFID tags with a corresponding number. These tags record details relating to the hog’s origin, including the name of the farm and lot number. At each step of processing, more information is added to a corresponding RFID tag and its linked database.
Ultimately each pack of processed food is pedigreed with the name of the source farm, the finished-product type, weight, date of production and expiration. The package carries only the product code and lot number, with the details about each pack kept in the database.CPF has introduced similar RFID systems to its shrimp processing plants, and plans to do the same with its chicken processing plants.
FEED Business Asia Vol.23 Nov/Dec 2008
With India’s government planning to ban the sale of live birds, this should lead to booming sales of dressed chickens. B. Soundararajan, Suguna’s Groups managing director said that demand for dressed chicken is expected to zoom with the government’s proposal to ban live birds sale in the country. Taking advantage of India’s growing market for dressed chickens, Suguna Poultry Farm is investing close to Rs80 corer for setting up several new poultry processing plants.While one processing plant already exists in Coimbatore, another is being planned in Hyderabad only to process broiler chicken. Once the plants are operational with a capacity of 40,000 tons of dressed chicken per month, the company plans to offer value-added poultry products for both domestic and export markets.
Other large Indian poultry market players such as Godrej Agrovet and Japfa are also reportedly tamping up their output of dressed chickens in anticipation of the impending legislative change. Furthermore, neighbouring south Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan have already decided to import dressed chicken instead of live ones.
FEED Business Asia Vol.22 Sep/Oct 2008
FEED Business Asia Vol.21 July/August 2008
In an effort to reduce soymeal prices, Thailand's government cut soy bean import tariffs from 4 percent to zero. Integrated hog, poultry and seafood conglomerate CPF said it would benefit from this import liberalisation move. Designed to help backyard farmers as much as conglomerates such as CPF or Betagro, the decision should enhance feed supplies while cutting hog and poultry production costs.
India , Bangladesh and Tibet all record outbreaks of avian flu. Nine out of the 19 districts in West Bengal reported outbreaks of avian flu among poultry. In response, officials slaughtered 2.2 million birds in the affected area. Later, there was panic at Maheshtala,Kolkata (Calcutta)after the mysterious death of 200 chickens there. These infected chickens were located close to the sites where dead wild birds were found earlier.
southwest of capital Dhaka . Fourteen afflicted chickens died in the house of a city dweller After confirming that they died of HN51 virus, officials sprayed disinfectant in a two-kilometer radius of the house.
Meanwhile, in southwestern Tibet , a poultry farm was quarantined after an outbreak of the disease killed 1,000 birds, agriculture officials reported Wednesday. More than 13,000 other poultry were destroyed to prevent its spread.
FEED Business Asia Vol.19 March/ April 2008Meanwhile, in southwestern Tibet , a poultry farm was quarantined after an outbreak of the disease killed 1,000 birds, agriculture officials reported Wednesday. More than 13,000 other poultry were destroyed to prevent its spread.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, American beef exports to the Philippines could double to US$12.6 million in 2008 due to Manila's lifting of all import restrictions on US beef. Previously, fears of mad cow disease prompted the Philippines to restrict US beef imports to boneless cuts and offal due from cattle less than 30 months of age. The country imported US$4.9 million worth of beef from the US in 2003 and approximately US$6 million last year.
Tyson Foods Inc. has begun raising 8-pound (3.7 kg) chickens at its Green Forest and Berryville , Arkansas facilities. Growers in the area confirmed that Tyson began distributing contracts for Cobb 700 jumbo chickens in late August. Targeted at rapidly expanding demand for breast meat and premium value-added processed chicken, the Cobb 700 achieves a heavy weight and high meat yield, while maintaining a low feed conversion and minimising production costs.Tyson also launched the rearing of this heavyweight Cobb 700 breed in Brazil and Italy . The move is a direct challenge to Aviagen's Ross 708, another heavyweight chicken which has established itself among the EU and South American poulterers over the past four years.
FEED Business Asia Vol.17 November/December 2007
FEED Business Asia Vol.17 November/December 2007
China tightened food safety laws on seafood and promised more fish farm inspections after the US banned seafood from China due to the presence of antibiotics. The US ban was followed by an EU threat that it is considering a ban. Chinese inspectors will check for use of cancer causing antibiotics such as nitrofuran and malachite green on fish farms. Top Chinese fish exporting companies are enlisting the help of Swiss certifiers to assure customers on food safety.
VIETNAM announced it aims to generate half its GDP from its seafood trade by 2020. The country's seafood production is now four times higher than in 1990, while its aquaculture output has risen 10-fold. Vietnam earned US$3.3 billion from seafood exports last year, making it the world's 10th largest seafood exporter.
ANIMAL scientists at China's Ganzhou Livestock Research Institute in Jiangxi province have developed a feed additive from plant extracts. Results from certification tests show that adding the feed additive at a proportion of 3 percent to complete feed or drinking water for animals would reduce feed consumption by 10 percent without any decline in weight gain or growth.
A recently unveiled US plan to allow Canada to ship older cattle-usually too decrepit to produce milk anymore-to the US for slaughter would result in an average of about 610,000 of them crossing the border yearly, according to a USDA estimate. The US has banned such "cull cattle" since Canada reported its first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, in May 2003.
South Korean fish farmers can soon get specialised veterinary care for their sick fish. A 5.4 billion won (US$5.8 million) aquatic hospital has been earmarked to open in Pusan, confirmed the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Fish diseases cost the industry some 300 billion won annually.
FEED Business Asia Vol.12 Jan/Feb 2007
Officials investigating the recent outbreak of food poisoning in spinach in California discovered E. coli in cattle feces on pastures near farms supplying the tainted product, possible carried through irrigation water. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Nebraska have developed an E. coli vaccine with hopes of eliminating cattle waste as a source of the bacteria.
The US gave its promise of adequate supplies of corn to Asia even as demand from the ethanol industry surges. Asian countries have been concerned that rising corn-ethanol demand could push corn prices to US$3-4/bushel in the next few years, nearly double current farm gate prices.
US researchers are adding sophisticated computer imaging in its arsenal to fight bird flu. Experts have been using Google Earth, which combines satellite imagery, maps and the company's search engine to give extra details on poultry farms and production facilities so veterinary authorities can quickly locate outbreaks. 
Scientists in the US have successfully inserted an ocean worm gene into pigs, creating a new breed high in omega-3, a nutrient-rich oil found mainly in fish. The need to develop alternative meat sources with the fatty acid is catching on as mercury contamination and dwindling sea catch threaten fish supplies.
RESEARCH at an agricultural centre in Japan's Kagoshima prefecture has found that adding dregs of shochu, a Japanese liquor, to pig feed helped the animals sleep well. It is likely that the rich vitamin E content of the dregs could maintain the freshness of pork.
THE USDA is seeking within three years to start a new inspection system at slaughter and processing plants. US scientists are also testing an eye-scanning technology for use in a national cattle ID system. The process, said to be painless, records the vein pattern in the animal's eye using a beam of light.
Powered by...cornStudies have shown that the molecular structure of corn closely resembles that of petroleum, so that practically all petroleum by-products can be replicated with corn. With energy prices soaring, the development of corn-based bilfuels like ethanol is starting to kick-off world wide and increasingly in China.
Also , processed corn products yield on average calue-added earnings that are anything from three to 100 times higher than that for unprocessed corn.
FEED Business Asia Vol.6 Jan/Feb 2006Also , processed corn products yield on average calue-added earnings that are anything from three to 100 times higher than that for unprocessed corn.
The Association of South-east Asian Nations or ASEAN has promised to set aside US$2 million for a regional fun for bird flu, said members of the ASEAN HPAI Task Force at a meeting in September. The group has also endorse a 2006-08 action plan by a Malaysian-led task force to eradicated bird flu.
Thailand's infamous fighting cocks must now be issued with passports recording their health history, as the government attempts to stem further outbreaks of the deadly bird flu disease. Fighting cocks and domestically reared chickens have been blamed for a recent bird flu outbreak in central Suphanburi province.FEED Business Asia Vol.4 Sep/Oct 2005
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