APPLICATION OF BIOTECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS IN ANIMAL FEED

Good and quality animal feed is required to meet quality requirements that include aspects of feed security, aspects of animal health, aspects of food safety and economic aspects. The four aspects are important to be fulfilled, because it will affect the health of livestock, the supply of livestock food, and the safety of consumers in consuming food from livestock, as well as cost efficiency in order to produce economically valuable feed.

Technology has been utilized since ancient times. Starting from fermentation technology for food and beverage production. Modification of technology and new applications continue to grow from year to year, especially since the era of antibiotics. The fermentation science and biotechnology are very prominent in the era of genetic engineering and fermentation technology has been able to make new breakthroughs in the field of industry to produce better commodities with low cost and high efficiency and does not cause environmental pollution.

The application of fermentation biotechnology in general and feed technology in particular, requires integrated knowledge between biology, chemistry, and technology to be able to carry out the design, operation, analysis, and optimization of bioprocess. Integrating these principles to achieve success requires time-consuming studies and experiments. But it must be realized, that even if success is slow, it will never be achieved or succeed if it is not started. In addition, knowledge of feed ingredients and the nutritional content of a feed ingredient will greatly support the success of the feed technology, if applied to the development of science and society.

Improved feed technology is one of the ways that must be taken, because in a farm, the component cost of feed is the largest component that must be spent by farmers. Moreover, the type of form of feeding especially those given to monogastric animals shows that the ration prepared for livestock is corn-based and soybean meal, where we still import the feed from abroad. Some food ingredients have the potential to be developed in terms of their availability, but sometimes a limiting factor is found in their use. Feed technology includes feed processing activities aimed at improving the quality of nutrients, increasing shelf life, and digestibility.