Professor of IPB: Future Feed Based on Insects
Feed of insects could potentially be the choice of future breeders because of the high protein content and proportional to Meat Bone Meal (MBM). It was delivered by Prof.Dr. Nahrowi, Permanent Professor of Faculty of Animal Husbandry, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) in the press conference of the pre oration in Campus of IPB Baranangsiang, Bogor, Thursday (22/10). The oration material that would be recited on the next Saturday (24/10) titled “Pakan Potensial Masa Depan dalam Mendukung Sistem Peternakan Tropika Modern Berkelanjutan dan Berdayasaing Tinggi / Future Potential Feed in Support of Modern Tropical Livestock System which is Sustainable and High Competitiveness”.
Feed was the most important thing to be addressed before preparing the seedlings. At least there were two reasons for this, namely the biggest cost of the farm business venture (approximately 70-85 percents) was derived from feed, and the livestock expressed its performance in accordance with the genetic potential if it got the feed according to the need.
“In 2014 not less than 46 trillion rupiah of foreign exchange every year are reduced to foreign countries due to the import of feed material,” he said.
Future feed material to be used to support the system and the model of modern tropical farm was the local feed material having a high nutrient density, safe and environmentally friendly, not competing with human needs, and a functional feed that was effective and efficient in its utilization. Potential feed materials that would evolve in Indonesia were hongkong caterpillar, foreage originated from ocean, protein concentrate from palm kernel cake, crude palm oil flour, and cassava.
“Hongkong Caterpillar can be the subtitute protein source of MBM and the fish flour because up until now we have not been able to produce the fish flour. Hongkong Caterpillar is already used in pet. Going forward there would be a large-scale industrial Hongkong Caterpillar. Hongkong Caterpillar contains fatty acids that are very good and has a content of chitin (feed additives), its protein is also high. The protein value is comparable to MBM, if I extract the protein could reach 55-60 percents. But before being extracted, the protein content is only 45 percents,” he said.
In the same occasion, Prof. Nahrowi lamented that the export of palm kernel cake abroad was because of the great benefits when viewed from the potential for animal feed. For ruminants, it indeed had been already used, but for poultry, fish and pork they were still small percentages of utilization. Palm kernel cake was not only to feed, but it could be used as a functional feed due to its high content of Mannan. Mannan was proved to be able to inhibit the pathogenic bacteria in the digestive tract, it could decrease the incidence of pullorum, and it could improve the immunity in broilers, layers (laying hens), and ducks from the attack of Avian Influenza. Its performance was comparable to an antibiotic growth promoter.
“We are the king of palm oil producers. Now we export the cake when loss if being exported. In America, to produce Mannan they utilize the yeast, whereas Mannan can be produced from the palm oil cake. For cassavae, there will be a grade, where the grade is for human and which is for livestock. Why cassava, because its cultivation is easy, its institutional is better than corn,” he explained.
The effort to generate the future feed continued to be made by Prof. Nahrowi. Among them was by developing silage. Not only for forage but it could be for other feed materials. Silage was an anaerobic fermentation technology to produce not only the feed products that could be kept but also the products of organic acids and or the products of lactic acid bacteria as the feed additives.
The product feed additive from the study of Prof. Nahrowi was able to stimulate the growth of broiler, and it was capable of preventing the case of diarrhea in the calf of dairy cow (its performance was comparable with antibiotics). This study had been patented.
For the next farm system, Prof. Nahrowi predicted that there would be two livestock systems that would evolve, namely the intensive farming system that was centralized in the livestock production center and the semi-intensive livestock system which was integrated with plantation. The semi-intensive farming integrated with plantation could produce the organic palm oil and the organic livestock.
“For the livestock reproduction, it is not suitable to use the intensive system, especially ruminants. Do not be kept confined, it must lose. Pregnant cow to give birth needs 227 days with the feed cost of 5.4 million rupiah. While the price of calf is 3-4 million rupiah. Small farmers do not calculate profit and loss, they just think of livestock as savings. To multiply the livestock, it should be maintained semi-intensively,” he explained.
The semi-intensive farming system would be oriented to the production of seedlings and the multiplication of livestock (particularly ruminants). This system was predicted to be more efficient and provided a double benefit, namely livestock and by-products (leaves and fruit) from the integration pattern of livestock-plantation/farm.(zul)
