Animal Feed Protein Business from Palm Oil Mill By-Products

Animal feed is a link in the food chain for humans. The need for feed will also continue to increase along with the growth of population or human population. In fact, a number of animal feed companies have animal feed factories with very large production capacities or millions of tons every year, for more details, read here. It is predicted that the human population will reach 9 billion people in 2050. The nine billion people who are predicted to live on planet Earth in 2050 will need an additional 250 million tons of protein per year, or an increase of 50% compared to today. This protein need can be met one way from the livestock sector and so that the livestock industry can achieve its target, a lot of animal feed industries are needed. 

Not only for humans, protein is also one of the main elements for animal feed and is among the most expensive protein animal feed elements. This is why protein production for animal feed is important for the feed industry in particular or the livestock industry in general. The world, especially Europe, is lacking the protein element in animal feed. This is why there is an organization in Europe that encourages the use of insects as a source of feed protein, namely IPIFF (International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed). The types of insects permitted to be bred by the European Commission for this purpose include only 7 species of insects, namely 3 types of crickets, 2 types of caterpillars and 2 types of flies. Apart from having determined and legitimized several types of insects, it turns out that the protein from these insects is not 100% for animal feed, but around 30% is for food consumed by humans.

PKE / Palm Kernel Expeller or PKC / palm kernel cake is a by-product or waste from palm kernel oil (PKO) mills with a protein content of around 15%. Compared to CPO mills, there are fewer PKO mills. This is because not all CPO mills also have PKO mills. It is estimated that the ratio of CPO mills to PKO mills is 10: 1. With the number of CPO mills in Indonesia currently around 1,000 units, the number of PKO mills is estimated to only be 100 units. This palm oil expeller or palm kernel cake / PKC has the potential to be used as maggot feed. Cultivating maggots from palm oil cake will produce premium quality maggots. With the main protein content (~ 45%) maggots will be a source of high quality feed protein. Meanwhile, if maggot cultivation uses palm oil mill effluent sludge or part of CPO mills liquid waste, the quality of the maggots produced will not be as good as if fed from palm oil expeller. However, with so many CPO mills, the potential for maggot production from palm oil mill effluent sludge is no less large.

Products that can be produced from maggot farming include dried maggots, maggot meal and maggot oil, as well as by-products in the form of feces and urines. Products from maggots in the form of dried maggots, maggot oil and maggot meal are feed ingredients for poultry, fish and pets. World feed production is estimated at around 1 billion tons each year with the following composition, namely, poultry feed production is ranked first with a portion of 45% or almost half of world feed production, followed by second place pig feed at 11%, third ruminant 10% and the rest are others such as food for fish, pets and horses. The world's largest animal feed producing countries are China with a share of 19.6%, followed by a number of countries, namely America with 17.4%, Brazil with 6.8%, then countries such as Mexico, Spain, India, Russia, Japan and Germany as well. are large producers of animal feed. the rest by countries around the world.

Maggot droppings, which are a by-product or waste from maggot farming, can be used as organic fertilizer, namely solid organic fertilizer and liquid organic fertilizer. This fertilizer can be used on various plantations and farms, including on palm oil plantations themselves. And it would be even better if the organic fertilizer was added or enriched with biochar so that it becomes slow release fertilizer and increases its nutrient use efficiency (NUE: Nutrient Use Efficiency).

POME Sludge Pellet

Processing palm oil mill effluent (POME) is one of the mandatory requirements for palm oil mills. This requirement becomes a criterion whether the palm oil mill in question has a good environmental concern, especially its waste processing sector. The liquid waste of oil palm mills is one of the large quantities of palm oil mill waste. Almost all palm oil mills always have wastewater treatment ponds. Every ton of FFB (Fresh Fruit Bunch) produces 700 liters (0.7 m3) of liquid waste so that if the plant has a capacity of 60 tons / hour FFB and operates 20 hours per day, the volume of liquid waste produced reaches 42,000 liters / hour (42 m3 / hour) or 800,000 liters / day (800 m3 / day). The method of processing wastewater can be like the diagram below.

Biosolid in the form of accumulated sludge can be processed further for biogas production, with by-products in the form of treated sludge, which is usually an organic fertilizer, can also be directly used as fuel. Instead of just being thrown away, the biosolid can be biomass densified into pellets. By becoming a pellet besides facilitating handling, storage, transportation and utilization. The pellet production process from POME sludge is also almost the same as the production of wood pellets. The production of POME sludge pellets is also a solution to overcome organic waste effectively and cheaper than processed further into biogas. Biogas production from POME with both the covered lagoon and CSTR (stirred tank continuous reactor) still requires expensive investment, so there are still very few oil mills in Indonesia that do it. And if the POME sludge is left alone in the waste pond so that there is aerobic fermentation it will produce methane gas which damages the ozone layer in the atmosphere.

If every month from a palm oil mill is produced 2,000 tons of POME sludge and an area such as Riau which has around 300 palm oil mills, then the potential of POME sludge reaches 600,000 tons and this is equivalent to 300,000 tons of POME sludge pellet. Whereas if calculated nationally with the number of oil mills reaching 1,000 units, the potential of POME sludge will reach 2,000,000 tons or equivalent to 1,000,000 tons of POME sludge pellet. Interestingly, POME sludge pellets also have a fairly high calorific value, which is about 4000 kcal / kg. This can happen because POME sludge still contains palm oil. With such a high calorie content, the POME sludge pellets are attractive. Besides being able to be used by various industries as fuel, the selling price of POME sludge should also be quite attractive because of its high energy content. The hope is POME sludge pellet will become a new and renewable energy amount that is very abundant in Indonesia. And if it is used as industrial fuel which means substituting fossil fuels, then it also reduces the use of fossil fuels, is environmentally friendly and carbon neutral.