Eliminating Table-4 Offers Ability to Take Full Advantage of Developments in Swine Nutrition

Dec 22, 2016

By Bruce Cochrane

The Executive Director of the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative says repealing Table-4 from the Feeds Act will enable feed formulators to take full advantage of the advances made in livestock nutrition over the past 20 to 30 years.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is reviewing public comments on its proposed modernization of Canada's livestock feed regulatory framework, including eliminating Table-4 of the Feeds Acts.

John Carney, the Executive Director of the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative, says Table-4, which stipulates minimum nutrient levels including phosphorus, is out of date and repealing Table-4 will provide more flexibility in better tailoring nutrient levels to meet the animals' requirements.

John Carney-Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative:

MLMMI has worked closely with Manitoba nutritionists on this question.

The message they've given us is that Table-4 is an impediment to some of the improvements they would like to make.

We are committed to working with the livestock industry here in Manitoba to try to bring best practices from around the world into play and having Table-4 set aside will certainly enable us to apply more of those leading practices without this constraint.

A lot has been learned over the last 20 or 30 years in terms of available nutrients in feed versus total nutrients in feed, what's available to the animal, how it can process it.

Consequently this has affected the feed industry and limited their ability to reduce nutrient levels in their feed regimes.

Carney says the whole goal is get more of the nutrients and the protein in the feed translated into the protein in the product that we're producing so there's less excreted and removing this impediment will allow nutritionists to formulate rations that provide the most benefits both environmentally and economically.

Source: Farmscape

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In tandem with understanding baseline emissions, Dr. Rajagopal's work focuses on evaluating emission mitigation options. Manure additives have the potential of reducing manure methane emissions. Additives can be deployed relatively quickly, enabling near-term emission reductions while biodigesters are being built. Furthermore, additives can be a long-term solution at farms where biogas is not feasible (e.g., when it’s too far from a central digester). Similarly, after biodigestion, additives can also be used to further reduce emissions from storage to minimize the carbon intensity of the bioenergy.