‘Breakthrough’ tech already centuries-old

THIS IS in reaction to the news item titled “Cheaper, healthier animal feed from UPLB” (Agri Matters, 6/8/16), which is about PECM (protein-enriched copra meal) for pigs via solid state fermentation, reportedly developed by scientists from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, for which considerable government research funds were allotted.

This, for me, represents one of the evident reasons agriculture in the Philippines remains a “poverty-perpetuating” industry—it continues to fund/implement grossly outdated, proven-inefficient technologies, and to present them as breakthroughs!

The use of microbial fermentation to improve the nutritive value of food is a centuries-old technology. It uses enzymes produced by fermenting microorganisms to do the work. But the technology’s main limitations, which prevent its commercial applications, are its basically very slow process, which requires large equipment outlay and is very inefficient vis-à-vis costs over improvement.

Current advances in microbial transgenic technology has allowed commercial production of purified enzymes at economically viable costs (even at animal feed considerations). And applications require a fraction of the time and amount of equipment traditionally needed. For example, genes from the microbe Trichoderma sp., which are responsible for the production of cellulase (the enzyme which digests the fiber cellulose) are snipped off and transferred to another microbe, E. coli. The E. coli will then be the one producing the cellulase but at over 50 times the efficiency of Trichoderma.

The main antinutritive components of copra meal are its fibers—primarily composed of cellulose and beta-galactomannan, and they make up over 50 percent of its mass—which not only directly impact copra carbohydrate digestibility but also trap over 40 percent of its protein content. Simple “stomach animals” (like pigs and poultry, including humans) do not produce the enzymes to digest these fibers.

Using the fermentation approach, it will take at least two days (the article says, three days) for adequate fermentative activity to occur, with all the ancillary equipment involved.

Using the transgenically-produced enzyme technology, the appropriate cellulase and beta-galactomannanase enzymes in prescribed doses, all it takes is to mix the enzyme powder with the copra meal in the usual dry form—with the enzymes doing their work when the animal eats the feed, releasing more nutrients from copra meal than can ever be achieved by fermentation; no ancillary equipment needed, and at lesser cost.

This technology matured since over a decade ago.

—JOEL F. MANGALINDAN, DVM, jfmweb@agriaccess.com