Overview
SUMINAPP aims to provide new insights on copper and zinc supplementation in diets of food-producing animals for more sustainable practices. The purpose is to combine scientific results so that the following objectives are optimized : animal productivity, intestinal health, environmental impact.
SUMINAPP will offer new tools for stakeholders in animal production chains :
- a guidance for copper and zinc supplementation in animal feeds,
- recommendation for non invasive biomarkers of intestinal health,
- speciation of metals in animal wastes and ecotoxicity of excreta for fine tuning of Life Cycle Analysis.
This project (E! 11780), approved by Eurostars office call, is being developed by Animine (France-based supplier of trace minerals for animal nutrition) in collaboration with PigCHAMP Pro Europa (Spanish company of R&D in pig production) and CIRAD (French agricultural research and international cooperation organization).
It has received funding from the Eurostars-2 joint program with co-financing from the BPI in France and CDTI in Spain, from the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Program of the European Union, with a total budget of 2,2M€.
Copper and zinc are non-renewable mineral resources
Depletion of the world’s metal resources is dangerous for the future and for world economic stability. Life expectancies estimates of world reserves indicated that in the next 20–30 years scarcity may occur.
Between essentiality and toxicity – the ambivalent nature of essential trace elements
A large proportion of dietary Cu and Zn is excreted in animal wastes, soils and waters. They are in the line of fire of recent EU regulations (e.g., EU Regulation 2016/1095) aiming at reducing the use of metals in animal production activities to avoid their accumulation in the environment and the development of microbial resistance.
Zinc and copper are essential nutrients for living animals, any clinical or sub-clinical deficiency can impair animal productivity, health and fertility. At supra-nutritional levels, they also have a significant impact on intestinal health and growth rate of monogastric animals. Therefore, a mechanical reduction of Cu and Zn dietary supply may challenge animal performance and increase the consumption of antibiotics. This would be in contradiction with the objectives of One Health Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance (WHO).
What do we need?
Stakeholders in animal nutrition are in need for new precision tools to fine tune the supra-nutritional effects of Cu and Zn supplementations while lowering the environmental impact.
What can we do?
Project SUMINAPP will provide the first holistic services and tools to implement precision mineral supplementation strategies, which will be both effective and sustainable in pigs, broilers, ruminants and aquaculture.
These tools include:
These tools will result from a unique R&D on mineral status and performance monitoring (ANIMINE expertise); gut health assessment (PigCHAMP) and on the ecotoxicity of a chosen diet in the soils (CIRAD).
They will make it possible to define mineral diet patterns for sustainable animal production. Regulators will have access to a new kind of scientific results. The research community at large will benefit from the generated knowledge on terrestrial ecotoxicity methods and data available in open access.
