The British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) annual conference is taking place this week at the Galway Bay Hotel in Salthill, Co. Galway.
The three-day event sees approximately 400 delegates from 23 different countries gather to share and discuss the latest research and findings relating to all matters relevant to animal agriculture.
BSAS president, Prof. David Kenny delivered the opening remarks at the conference on Tuesday morning, April 8, and the three-day event draws to a close this evening, Thursday, April 10.
The first presentation was delivered by deputy vice chancellor of Harper Adams University and technical advisor to the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance Partnership (LEAP) of the The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) professor Michael Lee.
Prof. Lee set the scene for the event, saying: “We have been a very successful species on planet Earth, post the agricultural revolution, we have populated the planet but that hasn’t come without impact and we now need to be able to change the way we produce our food and develop as a species on this planet.
“Human population geneticists are now predicting that by the year 2100, human population will plateau at 11 billion [people].”
“That’s a large number but, for the first time, we will know how many people we will have to feed and what we have to do to ensure that, equitably, we deliver nutritious food for all and change the way that we produce that food in one with nature.”
His presentation discussed emissions from agriculture and how they are being quantified and also explored how further efficiencies can be achieved in livestock production – particularly through the use of animal by-products and Processed Animal Proteins (PAPs).
He called on people to “eat more offal, particularly liver” and that “we need to consider the whole animal and the key nutrients it contains.”
He also discussed research currently underway on methods of stripping nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) out of cattle slurry.
The professor said: “We should stop mining western Sahara for phosphorus and start mining pigs, cows, and chickens for phosphorus – and I think we have the potential to do that.”
He cited a project led by Dr. Marie Kirby at Harper Adams on P recovery from slurry and said: “I think this is really exciting because this is in a container at the back of our dairy unit using electrocoagulation to strip out that P to produce a low P extract, but then critically to show and prove that P extracted is bioavailable to crops because that’s the critical thing.
“The way that this project is being developed, it’s in the back of a shipping container and we could visualise one of these shipping containers in the back of every single dairy unit to strip out that N and P.”
Following Prof. Lee’s presentation, delegates then had the option to attend one of four different seminars with the findings of different research papers relevant to different topics discussed in each.
LESS
One of the sessions focused on ‘Innovative Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Measurement and Mitigation Techniques’ and was sponsored by GlasPort Bio.
Senior research officer at Teagasc, Dr. Dominika Krol discussed ammonia emissions from low emission slurry spreading techniques using cattle slurry on cool temperate grasslands.
The conclusions in the abstract of the research noted that, on average, the Low Emission Slurry Spreading (LESS) techniques “do lower NH3 (ammonia) emissions from Irish soils.
“However, contrary to that demonstrated in previous research in other countries, there is very little difference between LESS techniques.
The research also recommended that “there should be a focus on encouraging farmers and contractors on the island of Ireland to use any LESS equipment, rather than specifically pushing the more expensive form” noting that “this may increase uptake”.
Calf exports discussed at BSAS
In the Young Stock session sponsored by Trow Nutrition, PhD candidate at Teagasc Moorepark, Susanne Siegmann discussed the effects of age and diet on the physiology of unweaned calves during ferry and road transport.
The abstract from this research presented at the BSAS conference noted in its conclusion section that “normal calf physiology was mostly restored by day eight after transport” and that calves were “notably challenged by long-distance transport”.
It also concluded that “younger calves had higher glucose levels and showed fewer signs of dehydration (lower levels of electrolytes) during transport.”
Beef cattle
The beef cattle session sponsored by Dunbia, which is a Division of Dawn Meats, heard from lecturer at University College Dublin (UCD) Dr. Alan K. Kelly who discussed early life nutrition and lifetime performance of dairy-beef cattle.
Dr. Kelly shared research that explored optimal levels of feeding for dairy-beef cattle and highlighted areas of opportunity to improve the performance and subsequent carcass weight of dairy-beef cattle.
A full list of the presentations from the three-day event is available on the BSAS website.
