FEED Business Worldwide - April, 2012

 

VIV/ILDEX India 2012: Two great exhibitions come together in one event 

 

by Carmen WOO 

 

 

Jointly organised by VNU Exhibitions Europe, Inter Ads India and Bangkok-based NCC Exhibition Organizer, this year's VIV/Ildex India 2012 was held at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC). Combining the respective feed and livestock emphasis of two formerly separate events, it created an integrated feed-to-meat platform for South Asia's agribusiness supply chain stakeholders. In addition to providing South Asia's largest industry forum, many speakers delivered speeches on their analyses and projections of this industry.

 

This year's edition kicked off with a speech paying homage to Dr. B.V. Rao, fondly referred to as the father of India's poultry industry and founder of Venky's, which is ranked by Forbes business magazine as 67th among the 100 best global small companies in 2000. 

 

Dr. Sandeep Karkhanis, Chairman and MD of Provimi Animal Nutrition India delivered the industry address and said that they are expecting a continuation of ongoing annual double digit growth over the next five years. Rapid dairy industry modernisation and increased poultry production have powered the country's booming agribusiness sector. This is reflected in the 5.7% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) the livestock industry has experienced over the past 5 years.

 

Based on these figures, Dr. Karkhanis made recommendations for improving the poultry and dairy sectors under India's 12th five-year plan, which is still in its drafting process. They include registering a consistent growth of 12% CAGR in order to double the size of the poultry and dairy industries by 2017-2018, and withdrawing export incentives on corn and soya. The latter recommendation is done with a view to the ongoing livestock expansion's strain on domestic feed crop supplies.

 

He explained that a benign cycle will be created should the Government invest in the poultry sector's modernisation, promote value-added processing and increasing subsidies provided by the ministry of Food Processing.

 

Mr. Nan-Dirk Mulder, Rabobank's associate director commodities gave a special industry keynote speech, giving detailed Rabobank's projections for the global and Indian poultry industry outlook up to 2020.

 

According to Mulder, 3% growth in world poultry demand and much faster consumption expansion in India itself are challenged by a number of obstacles. These include instability unstable feed grain supplies and rising input prices. Sustainability becomes a key issue, as Asia's soil quality is not the best in the world and suffers from centuries of over-farming. Asia in general and India in particular also faces limited availability of water and new limited arable land, both of which are needed to nurture and expand the poultry industry. 

 

Despite such challenges, Mulder stressed that India poultry industry holds immense potential. While India currently has a low per capita consumption of poultry products, it is experiencing growth in middle income demographics and per capita personal incomes that warrants investor interest. He suggests that the country move to a higher value chicken industry. He urged the sector to transition from being just producers to poultry franchisers, so as to integrate retail with poultry production and processing.

 

 

 

While the show focused solely on the poultry and layer sectors in previous years, this year's exhibition expanded its scope to feed production as well. In yet another first for VIV/ILDEX India 2012, the special theme Feedtech-Croptech, which has already been part of other regional VIV tradeshows, made its first appearance here. Feedtech-Croptech India (FCI) features members of the global feed, food and fuel sectors, with a focus on milling, processing, storage and handling of raw materials.

 

In line with the Feedtech-Croptech theme, a technical session "Optimizing Feed Production" was held, with speakers from Buhler, Andritz and Idah Machinery expounding on various feed production subjects. These included "Food safety and sustainability in poultry feed production" and "Watch the water – The accuracy of extruded products".

 

Visitors to the show enjoyed the introduction of several innovative products by exhibitors. China-based Muyang presented its latest extruder, the Muyang MY Single Screw Extruder. The equipment, which is new to South Asia, processes raw materials as well as producing pet feed and aqua feed.

 

Meanwhile, as part of its poultry master class, Dr. Erica Bongers, area manager of Fancom, introduced the company's new animal-friendly protein production system. Called intelligent Farming or iFarming, it maximises animal farming efficiency by constant and automatic monitoring of ambient conditions and measurements to record animal welfare.

 

This year, VIV ILDEX India achieved 40% net growth in exhibiting space, said Dr. Gerard W. Leeuwenburgh, Director International Exhibitions, VNU Exhibitions Europe.

 

"Such events provide a great platform to interact with both existing and potential business partners" commented Dr. Sujit Kulkarni, Sales Director of BIOMIN India, one of the exhibitors.

 

This year's successful show promises to be the first of many such events to come.