NRC Swine Committee Requests Data from AFIA Members
By Richard Sellers

The National Research Council has formed a new Committee on Swine Nutrition to update its Nutrient Requirements of Swine publication. An important task of the NRC committee is the revision and expansion of the tables of feed composition.

In the current edition of the Nutrient Requirements of Swine, the feed database was compiled from a variety of sources, including industry databases. In an effort to make the feed composition tables as current and comprehensive as possible, the NRC Swine Nutrition Committee has invited American Feed Industry Association members to contribute information on the nutrient composition of feeds. To avoid duplicate information, NRC committee members request that any data submitted by AFIA members be data you determined within your own company or organization.

Information sought includes the name of the ingredient, the analyzed nutrient content, and the number of observations that go into the mean for each nutrient. The NRC committee requests information on the proximate component analysis and individual amino acids, minerals, carbohydrate fractions, fatty acids, and vitamins for any ingredient that may be used to formulate a swine diet. If digestibility or availability data is included, information should be provided on how that data was obtained. If the committee needs more information, you may be contacted directly.

Any data or files provided by AFIA members will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act and must be made available to the public upon request.

If interested, please send all data files to Lee Southern at lsouthern@agctr.lsu.edu by March 31 2010; feel free to contact Southern or Austin Lewis at ALewis@nas.edu for additional information or clarification.

The Institute for Feed Education and Research, a non-profit foundation formed by AFIA in 2009, has provided $75,000 to support the work of this committee. This is the first grant made by IFEEDER.