SAES-422 Multistate Research Activity Accomplishments Report
Sections
Status: Approved
Basic Information
- Project No. and Title: NRSP_old9 : National Animal Nutrition Program
- Period Covered: 10/01/2019 to 09/30/2020
- Date of Report: 09/24/2020
- Annual Meeting Dates: 09/09/2020 to 09/09/2020
Participants
All members of the NRSP 9 committees who attend meetings throughout the year can be found at https://animalnutrition.org/committees.
The NANP Coordinating Committee conducted monthly conference calls to discuss activities conducted in conjunction with the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) in support of species nutrient utilization report updates, marketing and communications, overall NANP website development and improvement, potential new projects and inclusion of additional species, and the national NANP summit and other events. The committee also regularly discussed budget oversight and leveraging while entertaining proposals for new projects and events developed by the Feed Composition and Modeling Committees.
The Feed Composition Committee met regularly via phone conference throughout the year to discuss the continued development and improvement of the feed composition database and tools to aid in the use of this resource. Improvements to the feed composition resources available via the NANP website (animalnutrition.org) were planned and prioritized based on user feedback. This committee also tackled issues related to data ownership and acknowledgement as well as continued updates on the back-end of the NANP website to improve the ability to receive, add, and update new data. They also explored the development of an application/programming interface that would allow external organizations, including companies, to connect with the NANP data and provide a potential avenue to monetize select services in the future. Members of the committee also worked closely with the website developers on improving the user statics report to better track website usage.
The Modeling Committee also held regular conference calls throughout the year to discuss a wide range of issues related to expanding the modeling tools available and improving usage across the research community. Committee members worked to expand performance data from both new sources and the continued addition of data from old NRC utilization reports. Based on user feedback, the committee worked to improve the data summary tables to make viewing and downloading smoother. Considerable time was spent planning for modeling workshops held in conjunction with national scientific society meetings and developing proposals to garner external support for those workshops.
Accomplishments
Following the complete overhaul of the original website resulting in a robust, mobile-friendly, easily navigable resource, the project continued to add data and resources as well as make additional improvements to maximize utility. Website access/user statistics demonstrate an increased access from mobile devices compared to desktop access. User feedback resulted in the review and updating of all definitions for feedstuffs for improved clarity, creation of video tutorials for use of the feed composition database, and creation of a way for users to identify and reference versions of the database in resulting publications and other outputs. Animal performance data from the older NRC Swine and Dairy reports were added to the Animal Nutrition and Metabolism database. Additionally a GitHub repository was established to foster the sharing of computer code among the NANP modeling community.
Marketing and communication efforts resulted in the creation of a new brand strategy and logo for NANP along with accompanying educational and promotional materials for distribution at national and international meetings/workshops. Though face-to-face meetings did not take place this year for many professional societies, the NANP had a virtual presence at the 2020 American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) and American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) meetings.
NANP continued to support the revision of NASEM’s Nutrient Requirements of Poultry, the draft of which is nearing completion and is expected to be ready for reviews by the end of the year.
Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Modeling Committee planned and held two virtual workshops:
- 2020 NANP Nutrition Models Workshop, June 21, 2020; ADSA Annual Meeting (38 attendees)
- 2020 ASAS-NANP Symposium: Mathematical Modeling in Animal Nutrition: Training the Future Generation in Data and Predictive Analytics for a Sustainable Development, July 19, 2020; ASAS Annual Meeting (100 attendees).
In 2020, NANP post-doctoral scholars and committee members published 5 peer-reviewed journal articles detailing both new methods developed in support of creating the feed composition database and the application of NANP resources in animal research. The Coordinating Committee also made progress toward a publication summarizing the 2019 National Summit and the research priorities identified during that event. A complete list of publications can be found at https://animalnutrition.org/.
Impacts
- NANP website usage increased substantially since the overhaul in 2018-19. The current site is simple and intuitive, includes orientations on how to use the database, provides in-depth information to support animal nutrition research, and has an increasing use trajectory. Website analytics show a year–to-date 15% increase in total sessions and 47% increase in nutrient requirement model usage in 2020 over 2019. In addition, more than 24,000 individual ingredient searches have been performed by users since the revamped database launched in July 2019. As of August 2020, there were nearly 350 registered users. There was also a nearly two-fold increase in users in the 18-24 years of age category, demonstrating success in our efforts to reach the next generation of animal scientists.
- Over the current project period, NANP has collected, screened, sorted, and archived over 4 million records of feed composition information from scientific literature and analytical laboratories. These data have served as a resource for the site user community and helped enable the recent and ongoing revisions of NASEM nutrient requirement reports for beef, dairy, and poultry. Methods for automating the screening of feed composition data based on machine learning techniques were developed and are contributing to improvements in research efficiencies across disciplines. These collective activities have generated significant interest from other animal research communities, including aquatic and exotic species, to work with NANP to provide similar resources.
- NANP is filling critical gaps in training and professional development through the delivery of programs and resources in support of animal nutrition research. Collectively the modeling workshops held over the last 4 years of this project have reached nearly 750 participants from 5 continents, most of whom self-identified as having less than 2 years of prior modeling experience. Additionally, workshop materials have been viewed more than 3000 times on public websites including the NANP site. These workshops are reaching broad audiences in the modeling skills needed to accurately evaluate diets and predict excretion of nutrients to the environment. Given the demographics of both workshop attendees (roughly half of whom identify as students or post-docs) and website usage, we believe these events have helped NANP reach the next generation of scientists as reflected in website user demographics.
- Increasingly recognized as a premiere animal nutrition resource, NANP will serve as the primary source of feed ingredient information for NASEM Poultry revision users and we expect this to apply to other species revisions as well. In addition to previously reported organizations such as the UN Climate Change program’s NDC Partnership and companies like BASF aligning their tools to be able to draw from NANP’s feed composition database, 3 additional industry stakeholders have expressed interest in being able to interface with NANP datasets in support of delivering client services. In addition to creating a potential source of revenue to sustain NANP activities, such industry partnerships would extend the impact of NANP beyond the research community.
- NANP is contributing to the body of research on how animal nutrition can be applied to improve animal performance, efficiency and health while minimizing climate and environmental impact and contributing to human health and nutrition. In addition to publications previously reported on the roles of animal nutrition research on greenhouse gas emissions and global maternal and child health, NANP enabled the development of two new publications in 2020 advancing assessments of water use and overall sustainability of animal production. Both publications are creating tools for assessing environmental impacts to aid in policy development and decision-making.
Publications
Tran, H., A. Schlageter-Tello, A. Caprez, P. S. Millerm M. B. Hall, W. P. Weiss, and P. J. Kononoff. 2020. Development of feed composition tables using a statistical screening procedure. J. Dairy Sci. 103:P3786-3803. doi:10.3168/jds.2019-16702
Schlageter-Tello, A., G. C. Fahey, T. Freel, L. Koutsos, P. S. Miller, and W. P. Weiss. 2020. ASAS-NANP Symposium: Ruminant/Nonruminant Feed Composition: Challenges and opportunities associated with creating large feed ingredient composition tables. J. Anim. Sci. 98. doi:10.1093/jas/skaa240
Daley, V.L., L.E.Armentano, P.J.Kononoff, and M.D.Hanigan. 2020. Modeling fatty acids for dairy cattle: Models to predict total fatty acid concentration and fatty acid digestion of feedstuffs. J. Dairy Sci. 103:P6982-6999. 103:P3786-3803. Doi:10.3168/jds.2019-17407