Photo report: WORLD NUTRITION FORUM 2010 Austria

Salzburg, city of Mozart, is Austria's fourth largest city. This October, it is the scene for the fourth edition of the World Nutrition Forum, sponsored by Austrian animal nutrition company Biomin.

Approximately 700 people from 73 countries came to Salzburg to attend this edition, held in the city's Congress, from 13-16 October.

Biomin's founder and chairman, Erich Erber, kicked off the first day with a song and a presentation in the theme 'expect the unexpected'. As is pointed out in more symposia these days, he asked how the planet Earth will feed its 9 billion people in 2050. He mentioned four areas of concern: a shaky economy; global warming; population growth and depletion of natural resources. Companies and organisations, he said, can survive by finding a balance between searching for security and taking risks.

As an illustration of how to take risks but at the same time feel in total control, Austrian pilot Hannes Arch presented his life tale - about his experiences in the Red Bull Air Race World Series, when doing rock climbing or when doing base jumping.

Moving into the theme of 'the dilemma of responsibility', Gordon Butland, animal production expert, located in Thailand, spoke about the last ten years as 'the decade of challenges', zooming in into topics like feed additive contaminations, Avian Influenza, biofuel policies, the financial tsunami, an increased regulatory environment, labour shortages and industry consolidation.

Next, Jim Smith, World Bank, USA, zoomed into trends and factors of the animal livestock market. With regard to China and the Asian countries, he introduced the 'one health concept': Since increasing amounts of people will have to share the same space with increasing amounts of production animals - it is likely that all health issues will influence each other. No longer can they be treated as separate entities, he said.

Dr Felicia Wu, University of Pittsburgh was the first to talk about mycotoxins - and gave an excellent presentation as to the effects of certain mycotoxins on different animal species. She also touched on two relevant developments related to mycotoxins in the future. First, she said when feeding Distiller's Dried Grains and Solubles, concentrations of mycotoxins may be up to three times higher in comparison to conventional corn - increasing its impact. Secondly, she said global warming may have a strong influence on mycotoxin development in feedstuffs.

Dr Rudolf Krska, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria, is working on methods detecting mycotoxins in feedstuffs. He also talked about 'masked' or 'altered' mycotoxins, i.e. those that may escape initial testing but are released during animals' digestion.

Dr Bart Borg, director of feed operations at Murphy-Brown swine farms in the USA, spoke about his company's efforts to avoid mycotoxin contamination. These measures include e.g. in a buy/ non-buy treshold, adjustments to feed additives and on-site testing.

Giacomo Biagi, University of Bologna, Italy, briefly touched on the effect of mycotoxins on fish (leading to economic losses) and dogs & cats through pet food (leading to owner grief).

Dr Timothy Phillips, Texas A&M University, USA, spoke about the efficacy of using clay as a mycotoxin-binder; and what kinds of clay may work best; and how effects like these could be measured. Biomarkers play an important role in this.

Biomarkers also were the key topic of Nguyen Quang Thieu, Nong Lam University, Saigon, Vietnam. He spoke about the possibility to deduce mycotoxin biomarkers from swine urine, serum or bile, as every mycotoxin leaves its own biomarker.

The day was closed off with several expert talks in side symposia. Before that, however, Dr Todd Applegate (middle), Purdue University, USA, was awarded this forum's B.R.A.I.N. Award - a prize of US$10,000 within the Biomin Research And Innovation Network. He received the award for 'a broader understanding of the immunologic and physiologic impacts of probiotic phytogenic supplementation in poultry'.