Alternative protein sources for organic poultry

The supply of protein and essential amino acids will undoubtedly be a great challenge for European poultry nutritionists when the transition to 100% organic feed ingredients for organic poultry production becomes reality. To avoid costly and energy consuming oversea transports connected to the import of soya beans, much research effort has focussed on the exploitation of alternative locally grown protein sources to increase the sustainability of organic production systems. Besides the cultivation of protein crops like legumes (peas, lupin, and faba been) and seeds (sunflower, rapeseed), new approaches including the feeding of protein concentrates from green biomass obtained by bio-refinement are discussed. At present, many of the alternative protein sources require a high degree of energy demanding processing and refining, i.e. drying and extraction in order to increase protein quality and quantity. These processes have to be optimised with respect to their efficiency in order to make local protein sources a competitive alternative to soya beans and fishmeal.