Peas and Faba Beans as Home Grown Alternatives for Soya Bean Meal in Grower and Finisher Pig Diets

摘要

Although there has been an increasing availability of rapeseed meal over the last few decades, EU protein production for animal feed purposes continues to fall short of demand (Figure 1). Consequently EU countries, including the UK, have to rely heavily on imported protein sources for non-ruminant feeds, predominantly in the form of soya bean meal (SBM), either directly or indirectly through home crushing of imported soya beans (Crepon, 2006; Jezierny et aL, 2010a), and largely from Argentina and Brazil (Gerber et aL, 2010). However, there are increasing concerns about the sustainability and security of non-ruminant production in the UK if SBM continues to be used at the current rate whilst at the same time SBM demand is rapidly increasing elsewhere, e.g. in China. There are also environmental concerns with SBM as the rapid increase in demand for soya is associated with increasing demands of land use change (Fearnside, 2001). Thus, there is a need to find viable home-grown, or European-grown, alternative protein sources to meet the protein demand for animal feed in general, including pig feeds. In temperate environments, grain legumes such as peas (Pisum sativum) and faba beans (Vicia faba) are potential protein sources that could be considered for pig feed. Provided they can be used to replace SBM without impacting pig performance, there is opportunity to reduce reliance on SBM imports, and thus the environmental footprint of pig production in the UK.