Rapeseed meal: description, application, overview of manufacturers

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The peculiarities of rapeseed are, first of all, unpretentious care and high yield. It is possible to grow this crop on the territory of Russia in almost all regions - from the central ones to Siberia and the Urals. Rapeseed oil is widely used in the food industry, in the manufacture of cosmetics, and in medicine. The product of its processing - meal - is a very valuable type of animal feed.

What is

This type of feed is obtained at enterprises using pre-pressing technology. The oil at the factories is made from rapeseed seeds by double pressing them. The dry mass remaining after this procedure is subjected to additional moisture-thermal treatment - toasting. Such a product can be sold to livestock enterprises either in the form of powder or granules.

Product value

The diet of farm animals should include feed containing a large amount of protein. Otherwise, pigs, cows, etc. will not gain weight well and will start to get sick. As a result, the farm will suffer significant losses. One of the types of protein feed is rapeseed.meal.

The value of such granules lies primarily in the fact that they contain proteins with very high biological activity. In this regard, rapeseed meal surpasses both sunflower meal, which is currently the most popular among livestock breeders, and pea or legume meal. In terms of energy value, this type of feed is close to soybean meal.

The proteins contained in this product are very well balanced in amino acid composition. The level of lysine in them is less than that of soy. But at the same time, rapeseed proteins contain almost twice as much methionine and other sulfur-containing amino acids. That is why rapeseed is so in demand in animal husbandry. Unfortunately, other types of protein feed used in breeding pigs, cows, etc., are poor in methionine.

Depending on the variety of rapeseed, the meal made from it can contain 36-39% protein. At the same time, the protein that is part of this product is digested by animals by 70-80%.

What else is included

Some drawback of this type of food is that it contains quite a lot of fiber - up to 16%. The more it is in toasted rapeseed meal, the worse the protein is absorbed by the animal organism. Also, due to fiber, the availability of copper and manganese for the animal organism in this feed is reduced. Therefore, it is believed that the meal obtained from the preparation of oil from rapeseed seeds with a yellow shell is best suited for feeding pigs, cows, etc. This fiber product contains the least.

In addition to copper and manganese, this product contains animals that are beneficial for the body:

• iron;
• calcium;
• phosphorus;
• selenium.

It is believed that all these substances from rapeseed meal are better absorbed by the body of pigs and cows than from soybean. At the same time, this type of food, unfortunately, does not contain too many vitamins.

Interesting fact

Despite its high nutritional value, rapeseed meal has been used in animal husbandry relatively recently. The fact is that until the 70s of the last century, this product was considered very harmful, including for pigs and cows due to the high content of erucic acid. This substance can really have a negative effect on the heart muscle. However, in the 70s of the last century, breeders bred new non-eruk varieties of rapeseed.

For example, very often agricultural enterprises today grow a special variety of this plant - canola. This culture contains a minimum amount of not only erucic acid, but also chlorophyll, and is also distinguished by the absence of a pronounced taste (in ordinary rapeseed it is not very pleasant - mustard).

For which animals can be used

This type of feed is especially widely used in dairy farming. Also, rapeseed meal is used for breeding:

• pigs;
• geese, ducks, chickens, turkeys;
• rabbits.

In poultry farming, unlike animal husbandry, this meal is not widely used. Tofor example, they give it most often to broiler chickens. The use of rapeseed meal for feeding laying hens is considered unacceptable by many farmers. And even broilers are usually given it in an amount of no more than 5% of all the products they receive. The fact is that the composition of rapeseed, among other things, includes sinapin, which can give eggs and poultry meat a “fishy” flavor. Ducks, geese, turkeys and rabbits can get such a meal in large quantities.

How it is used

In its pure form, this type of feed is usually not given to farm animals. Most often, rapeseed meal is part of various kinds of compound feed. This additive is widely used mainly by large and medium-sized agricultural enterprises. In personal farms, meal of this variety has not yet found a particularly wide application. However, some farm owners still feed such a product to their animals. In this case, cows, pigs, etc. also usually receive it with compound feed.

Nutrient mixtures, including rapeseed, belong to the group of universal feeds in animal husbandry. Usually they contain all the components necessary for the normal development of animals. However, in addition to them on farms, pigs and cows are usually given juicy and roughage. That is, they introduce into the diet of animals, for example, silage, root crops, and for cattle without fail, of course, hay or grass.

Producers of rapeseed meal in Russia

They bring this product to the market, although it is not as popular as, for example, the same sunflower meal,many companies today. You can buy it for the manufacture of compound feed in any region of Russia. For example, such manufacturers are engaged in the sale of meal of this variety, such as:

• Zernokorm LLC (Voronezh).
• OOO "Lada" (Novosibirsk).
• Khimgarant LLC (Izhevsk).
• Mamruko LLC (Krasnodar).
• Agrocapital LLC (Kazan).
• Sibmax LLC (Omsk).
• LLC "TD Complex-Agrotrade" (Moscow).
• InvestSnabKomplekt LLC (Moscow).

One ton of rapeseed meal on the domestic market costs about 18-20 thousand rubles.

This product is produced in our country, of course, in compliance with certain standards in terms of protein content and other substances. Regulates the production of rapeseed meal at enterprises GOST 30257-95. According to this document, the food of this variety sold by companies should have, for example, a color from light brown to dark brown with a greenish tint. Nitrates in the meal should contain no more than 450 ppm (mg/kg), and moisture and volatile substances - a maximum of 8-12%. Pest infestation of this product is not allowed.

Features of production in Russia

The key regions for growing rapeseed in our country are:

• Kaliningrad, Tula, Ryazan, Kemerovo and Lipetsk regions.
• Stavropol and Altai Krai.
• Republic of Tatarstan.

Until 2013, the gross harvest in Russia of this crop was steadily growing. If in 2001domestic agricultural enterprises harvested about 113.2 thousand tons of rapeseed per year, in 2013 this figure amounted to 1393.3 thousand tons. However, after 2013, the gross harvest of this crop began to decline. This was due to the fall in prices for rapeseed oil on the world market.

In any case, in recent years, the volume of production of rapeseed meal and cake in our country has increased by almost 4.5 times. Today, this product is sold in huge quantities not only in the domestic market. Russia exports a lot of such meal to other countries of the world. The main buyers of this product from Russia are Finland, Denmark and Sweden.