PARTICIPANTS
To carry out this initiative, a multidisciplinary operational group of a supra-autonomous nature (Galicia, Madrid and Navarra) has been created, which has a total of 8 participants between requesting members and collaborating members.
Requesting Members
De Heus Nutrición Animal S.A.
Royal De Heus is a multinational company founded in 1911, which for four generations has been owned and managed by the De Heus family. The company has grown to become one of the major players in the compound feed industry globally.
It has its own facilities in the Netherlands, Vietnam, Brazil, Poland, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Myanmar and India; and strategic alliances in Egypt, Ethiopia, Russia and China, which has allowed it to achieve a leadership position worldwide. In addition, Royal De Heus operates in more than 75 countries by exporting concentrates and premixes, mainly to Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South America. The company currently has more than 8,000 employees.
In Spain, De Heus is present in practically the entire national territory through its 13 production centers and nearly 450 employees. It has a production capacity of more than one million tons per year.
Fundación Empresa-Universidad Gallega (FEUGA)
Representative of the Operative Group
FEUGA has spent nearly 40 years dedicating itself to the transfer of knowledge, innovation and technology between the research sector and the business world in different sectors, such as agri-food and forestry, through the revitalization and participation in projects, both at the regional and national levels. as a European, as head of communication and dissemination in R&D projects. With more than 50 projects approved in the last six years, FEUGA has extensive experience in promoting and preparing R&D projects. Participation in these projects is based on carrying out communication, dissemination and transfer activities, for the execution of which it has a team with extensive experience in this field.
Porto-Muiños S.L.
Seaweeds are the protagonists of this small innovative Galician company founded in 1998. Since then it has carried out intense Research and Development work in collaboration with numerous public and private entities in order to increase knowledge about this valuable and forgotten resource, sea vegetables, so abundant and little explored on the Galician coast.
Marine algae are a natural source of high-value nutrients that can contribute to improving the health and quality of life of people and animals, without forgetting in the times in which we live the beneficial effects that their presence has on the environmental quality of the natural environment, and of the planet in general.
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC)
The USC will participate in the project through the Grupos de Investigación en Medicina animal (IMedA), Anatomía Patológica Veterinaria (GAPAVET), Investigación en Sanidad Animal (INVESAGA), Higiene, Inspección y Control de Alimentos (LHICA) and Seguridad Alimentaria del Laboratorio de Referencia de E. coli (LREC).
The USC working group will be coordinated by Dr. María Marta López Alonso, Principal Investigator of the GI IMedA. Dr. Marta López Alonso has extensive experience in research in animal nutrition and metabolism. She is currently a member of the Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP) of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and is part of the Working Group of Animal Nutrition. The working group that participates in this proposal has experience in the rabbit sector and from a multidisciplinary perspective has previously participated in several research projects with companies in the sector to develop comprehensive control systems for digestive pathologies, as well as new technologies for minimizing of the use of antibiotics.
The group also presents experience in the use of seaweed in animal nutrition, with special interest in the use of bioactive substances to improve animal health and the nutritional composition of animal products.
The GAPAVET research group (IP Dra. María Isabel Quiroga Verdeal) has a pathological anatomy laboratory with specialists in the study of rabbit intestine that routinely works for companies in the sector through its External Diagnostic Service. Similarly, the INVESAGA research group (researcher in charge, Dr. Rosario Panadero Fontán) has parasitology and microbiology research and diagnosis laboratories, with specialists in rabbit health. The LHICA-USC laboratory (researcher in charge Dr. Beatriz I. Vázquez Belda) has extensive experience in microbiome studies, antibiotic resistance in animal products and studies on the presence of drug residues in the environment of animal production farms. Finally, the LREC group (researcher in charge Dr. Azucena Mora Gutiérrez) has extensive experience in the characterization of pathogenic strains of E. coli involved in colibacillosis through its external diagnostic service, as well as in the investigation of antibioresistance “of the farm to table.
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)
UPM will participate in the project through the Animal Production Research Group (PRAN).
The rabbit nutrition research group at UPM is an expert in identifying nutritional strategies that improve the intestinal health of rabbits, as well as the nutritional assessment of ingredients. The group has an experimental farm for breeding rabbits, rooms for individual and/or collective fattening of rabbits, as well as metabolism cages, which allow them to evaluate the productive performance of rabbits and reproductive rabbits, determine ileal and fecal digestibility and nitrogen and energy retention efficiency using the bioimpedance technique. The rabbit nutrition research group of the UPM has a history of more than 40 years, focusing its activity in the last 20 on how to enhance the intestinal health of rabbits. This has resulted in 35 publications in the field of rabbit nutrition in SCI magazines in the last 10 years, as well as participation in projects promoted by the interprofessional Intercun, or companies in the sector (Hermi, Nutreco, Norel, Huvepharma, Neovia) and in publicly financed projects.
This group participates as co-founder of the ‘European Group of Rabbit Nutrition’ together with other researchers from INRA, University of Padua, Technical University of Lisbon, Flanders Institute of Agriculture (ILVO) and Polytechnic University of Valencia. In addition, he has experience in the evaluation of the nutritional characteristics of algae in ruminants, collected in three publications in SCI journals in the last 3 years.
Collaborating members
Naraba Rabbit Breeders Cooperative Society
PROGACUN
Galician Rabbit Producers Association
