A great number of livestock farming sectors are going through difficult times at present. In the U.S., total sheep numbers have fallen from 6.9 million to 5.3 million in the past 15 years. Meanwhile, British beef farming has seen a 4% drop in production over the past year (a 7% drop in head count over the last decade) according to a May 2017 report by the UK’s Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (pdf). But despite these drops in livestock numbers, one sector of agricultural production that is performing well is the Spanish animal compound feed industry.
The announcement was made by Cesfac (Confederación Española de Fabricantes de Alimentos Compuestos para Animales), a “professional non-profit organization that coordinates and represents the interests of animal feed businesses for the 15 Spanish regional associations”. When submitting its Annual Report for 2016, the feed industry body was able to declare another year of profitable growth, marking a level of expansion that has made the Spanish compound feed market the second largest in Europe (behind Germany).
The 2017 General Assembly of Cesfac.
The Spanish feed industry currently employs 11,700 people in 793 companies, with compound feed turnover in excess of €8,800m.
The annual report is a comprehensive analysis of the national output of feed manufacturers for the past year, as well as providing forecasts for the following years.
This year’s publication was particularly positive, announcing that, “the association estimates the production of compound feed for farm animals at 22.03 Mt in 2016; a 1.4% increase over the previous year. Likewise, production is expected to continue rising (at 0.2%) to a volume of 22.08 Mt in 2017.”
The report also notes the rapid growth in feed production for poultry which grew by 4.6% to 4.4 Mt, adding that, “…food for the pork sector is the most numerous at about 10 Mt, which represents 47% of total feed production, and experienced a slight increase of 0.6%. In addition, feed for other species (cattle, sheep, goats, and horses) also increased slightly, by 0.7%, to slightly more than 7.5 Mt.”
According to the ‘Pig Professionals’ at industry journal Pig333, this growth is due in large part to the fact that, “the trust in this [Spanish feed] sector's products is high thanks to their good quality.”
This has led to some consistent growth in the feed industry in the last few years. As the 2017 Alltech Global Feed survey notes, “The major story within the European region is Spain. It now leads EU feed production at 31.9 million metric tonnes, an 8% increase from last year. This increase is significant considering the region as a whole grew 3.36% from last year.”
This upswing has led to a number of feed sector big names to enter the Spanish market. Industry journal, FeedNavigator reported in March 2017 that, “De Heus has bolstered its position on the Spanish feed market by acquiring compound feed manufacturer, Acorex.”
Back in 2010 , animal health and nutrition company, Alltech, “announced the opening of its first office in Spain.” While feed ingredient specialists, AG CHEMI GROUP (who support this article) has been expanding quickly into the Spanish feed market. As an official business partner of PhosAgro, AG CHEMI GROUP is able to offer high quality feed additives at competitive prices. Timely deliveries are also ensured by the recent opening of an MCP storage facility on the outskirts of Barcelona.
All these company expansions are made possible by the growing demand for Spanish compound feed products and feed additive raw materials.
Such is the quality of many Spanish feed producers that Cesfac was able to report that, “[last year] about 749,000 t were exported (compared to 699,000 t from a year earlier), to markets that include France, Portugal and the United Arab Emirates.” The feed industry body continues by adding, “It is worth highlighting the progress of China in the last two years, from acquiring less than 2,000 t in 2013 to surpassing 33,000 t in 2016.”
Despite a competitive market where, according to Alltech “The top 30 countries ranked by production output possess 82% of the world’s feed mills and produce 86% of the world’s total feed,” then Spain’s position as sixth largest global producer of compound animal feed is an amazing achievement.
With good access to both West African phosphate mines and the high productivity livestock farms of the EU, Spanish feed manufacturers are definitely well placed for continued growth.
If you are interested in discovering more about AG CHEMI GROUP's wide range of feed additives then please take a look at our catalogue.
