January 6, 2025

 

Can China successfully replace corn, soybean use in feed?

 

China's feed formulations were previously modelled upon those of Western countries, especially the corn and soybean meal formulation model of the United States.

 

However, with the costs of corn and soybean rising, there are concerns over food security in the country where 80% of soybean supply relies on imports.

 

As such, the State Council of China issued the "Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Animal Husbandry in 2020", which sought the reduction of corn and soybean meal in feed production. In 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued the "Work Plan for Reducing and Substituting Corn and Soybean Meal in Feed" and the "Technical Plan for Reducing and Substituting Corn and Soybean Meal in Pig and Chicken Feed".

 

In 2020, China's inclusion rate of corn in feed formulation averaged 48.86%. By September 2024, this dropped to 41.56%. Substitute raw ingredients, such as rice bran, wheat, barley, and dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), as well as sorghum and rice, have replaced corn.

 

With the costs of wheat relatively cheap as corn prices stayed strong, the wheat substitution rate has exceeded 15% each year (and surpassed 20%, in some years). Additionally, corn inclusion rates dropped to 30%. Several types of pig feeds have a total absence of corn in their formulations.

 

It should be noted that the key to energy ingredient substitution is the cost-effectiveness ratio at the same energy nutrition level. Therefore, the annual use ratio of wheat fluctuates from 2.57% to 15.66%, while the addition ratio of barley, sorghum, and rice is more stable in the range of 1-3%.

 

On September 19, 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs held a video conference to promote the substitution of soybean meal. This requires the widespread implementation of soybean meal reduction in the entire industry, thus intensifying the promotion of low-protein diet technology and accelerating the development and utilisation of alternative ingredients.

 

From 2020 to September 2024, the inclusion rate of soybean meal in feed formulations dropped from 14.05% to 13.34%, a marginal decrease of 0.2% per year.

 

Muyuan Group started to promote low-protein feeds as early as 2000. In 2023, the soybean meal inclusion rate was 5.7%, which was 7.3 percentage points lower than the 13% average in the industry.

 

Meanwhile, Wen's Group continued to establish and apply technologies such as low-protein, multi-amino acid balanced formulations. In the first quarter of 2024, the inclusion rate of soybean meal in pig feed formulation was as low as 3%. New Hope employed bio-fermentation technology to increase the degradation rate of miscellaneous meal protein by 30%, the degradation rate of cellulose by more than 50%, and the elimination rate of anti-nutritional factors by 80%. This helped to cut the soybean meal inclusion rate in 2022 by 3%.

 

In 2022, Haida Group's average soybean meal inclusion rate in pig and poultry feeds was 12%, a decrease of 3.3% or 460,000 tonnes in soybean meal usage. Through using more miscellaneous meals, the inclusion rate of soybean meal used in nursery pig feed was reduced to about 12%, and that of piglet feed was as low as 8%.

 

In the process of replacing corn with wheat, more 'aged' grains were used. Wheat and rice products currently circulating in the feed market are aged grains. As the aging time increases, the digestibility of nutrients gradually decreases. Experienced nutritionists usually discount the digestibility of nutrients by 3-5% when using aged grains, which is a considerable loss.

 

In 2023, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China's soybean meal accounted for 13% of the feed ingredients consumed by the livestock industry, a decrease of 1.5 percentage points from the previous year. Annually, the consumption volume of soybean meal for feed has decreased by 7.3 million tonnes. This reduction in soybean meal use will stimulate an increase in the demand for lysine by nearly 87,900 tonnes and 31,400 tonnes for threonine.

 

In addition, the demand for enzymes and bacteria fermentation agents, which are used to increase the digestibility of miscellaneous meals, will expand accordingly as well.

 

China's feed production has entered an era of precise nutritional formulation. The rise in the popularity of some minor amino acid varieties will further promote the replacement of corn and soybean meal.

 

About EFL AG-DATA

 

EFL AG-DATA is a startup incubated by Singapore's Nanyang Technological University's Innovation and Enterprise Company (NTUitive) Incubator Program. It is developing an agricultural hub that will revolutionize the feed-to-meat supply chain in China and Southeast Asia countries through data-driven solutions. EFL's mission is to empower farms through innovative data-based services that solve complex problems and enhance productivity.

 

- EFL AG-DATA