The Road to Net Zero Livestock Production

Thanks for the detailed information regarding the many factors that humans should be concerned about in the production of animal products. Your enumeration of possible improvements in the reduction of the harmful elements is a great way to get some action.
My contribution to that effort was the development of software to minimize the cost of the Feeds. The use of Linear programming in the Feed Formulation software was the tool that was needed. This allowed users with the proper data to produce a better feed based upon all of the costs for the ingredients.
Your article is strongly recommending that users develop or find the costs of the many factors like GHp, GHG, and more. Once the numeric values of the factors per each ingredient is known or assumed, a person generating will know the amount of the factor is in each ton of feed and/or one could actually formulate with limits on that particular Factor. Knowing the "number" for each feed is the beginning of users to make decisions as to how much of that factor they can afford and/or how much of that factor is acceptable.

I fully agree with Bob Brill´s comment.

Thanks Dr. Penz,
For the non-nutritionists who wish to know more about what data is needed in order to have a new factor (or non-nutritive) element calculated or evaluated in the Least Cost Formulation, you may find what you need in a recent book published by Dr. Todd Applegate of the University of Georgia. The book is entitled Advances in Poultry Nutrition. I was pleased to contribute the chapter entitled "Poultry feedstuff management and feed formulation utilizing big data". One of my primary goals was to show a user who has "new data" how to get the data into use by the Formulation program. Once the data is in the Formulation program, the new data can be use to quantify what the additional cost of the new product or factor contributes to the formula.