New Immune-inhibition Tech Grows Meat Faster at Lower Cost

 Sep 25, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- A Taiwanese professor has developed a novel immune-inhibition technology that can shorten animals' growth period and reduce farmers' cost -- an innovation that may provide a solution to the world's food shortage problem. The technology developed by Tzong-Yueh Chen, a professor from the Institute of Biotechnology at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), promotes animal growth in such a way that meat will appear on the market earlier at a lower cost. "The ultimate goal of technology is to solve world problem. Tzong-Yueh Chen's research team has proved that groupers and even pork can be produced faster with lesser feed at a lower cost, an achievement that will benefit both the human beings and the Earth," said president Hwung-Hweng Hwung. This immune-inhibition technology produces specific antibodies and binds them to growth inhibition proteins found in fish, so the proteins will become deactivated and the growth rate in fish will accelerate. In a 12-week field experiment, Chen's research team used the technology on one pond of groupers and the traditional method on another pond for comparison. The results show that the groupers raised in the former pond grew to over 25.2cm and weighted 274g, while the groupers raised in the latter pond grew to 24.9cm and weighted 252g. According to Chen, it takes an ordinary grouper farm 14 months to produce a marketable 600g grouper at a prime cost of NT$40. With the newly-developed technology, his team only needs 11 months to produce a 600g grouper at a prime cost of NT$10. "Taking 20,000 groupers as an example, not only an extra NT$200,000 profit will be made but also a 3-month period will be spared," said Chen. In addition, his novel technology can be used on domestic animals such as pigs, as farmers need only 3kg of feed to grow 1kg of meat. Otherwise, 4kg of feed will be needed to achieve the same target. "If the world produces one billion pigs annually with the immune-inhibition technology, 170 million tons of corn will be saved to feed approximately 570 million people for a year, helping to solve the problem of food shortage," said Chen.