Introduction
The Indian feed industry is about 35 years old. It is mainly restricted
to dairy and poultry feed manufacturing. The quality standards of Indian
feeds are high and up to international levels. Raw materials for feed
are adequately available in India. The industry's
poultry feed
production is about 3.0 million tonnes, which represents only 5
percent of the total potential and feed exports are not very high. The
Indian
animal feed industry is undergoing a very exciting phase
of growth for the next decade.
Production area
The regions of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and coastal areas
are rich in the production of animal feed due to high crop cultivation
and industrial setups that give animal feed as the by product.
Growth promotional activities
The feed industry has modern computerized plants and the latest
equipment for analytical procedures and least-cost ration formulation
and it employs the latest manufacturing technology. In India, most
research work on animal feeds is practical and focuses on the use of
by-products, the upgrading of ingredients and the enhancing of
productivity. The country has entered into a period of liberalization
and this is bound to influence the livestock industry. There is no
shortage of compound animal feeds anywhere in the country.
The organized sector of the compound feed industry is facing serious
problems resulting from a huge idle capacity, to the extent of 50
percent or more. New capacities are being added by global participants
of the feed business and by national as well as multinational
integrators. The nature of animal feed and the poultry feed industry has
completely changed.
Types
Meat-meal, fishmeal, bone- meal and dicalcium phosphate of bone origin
are the common raw materials available for animal feeding. Fishmeal and
meat-meal were popularly used in poultry feed, but the increased
production improved availability and better awareness of soybean meal
that led to replacing fishmeal and meat-meal in most poultry rations.
