The training was April 23-27 at the IGP Institute Conference Center in Manhattan, Kansas, U.S. The IGP Institute offered the specialized feed manufacturing training through the U.S. Soybean Export Council.
Participants attended the training and toured several industry businesses in Kansas. They also gained knowledge through lectures led by KSU faculty and staff.
The topics covered in this training included particle size reduction; batching and mixing; conditioning and pelleting; effects of feed processing on monogastric nutrition; troubleshooting; extrusion processing; pellet cooling and crumbling; post-pellet liquid applications; grain and feed ingredient storage; quality control program; benefits of full-fat soybean meal utilization in animal feeds; maintenance in the feed mill; and effects of feed processing on dairy nutrition.
Course participants toured several U.S. facilities, including: Countryside Feed, LLC in Hillsboro, Kansas; KSU’s O.H. Kruse Feed Technology Center in Manhattan, Kansas; the KSU Dairy Teaching and Research Center in Manhattan; O’Trimble Family Farm in Perry, Kansas; and Kansas Soybean Commission in Topeka.
These hands-on learning opportunities were meaningful to course participant Wang Jikuo, executive general manager at Gushi Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Group Co., Ltd in the Heilongjiang Province in China. He wanted to use this opportunity to see how the feed industry worked and what some of the best practices of feeding are in U.S. feed production systems.
“I really enjoyed all of the different parts of the course,” Wang said. “For example, the site visit on the first day to a co-op was an interesting model for us to learn and I can bring that co-op model back home to China to use.”