Phasing out antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) from poultry diets in Europe and recent moves toward reduction or removal of these compounds in other parts of the world including North America has put tremendous pressure on the poultry industry to look for viable alternatives.

The poultry industry expansion could not have happened without individuals working in different segments of the industry including farms, feed mills, and processing plants.

Feed prices, as the major expenditure of poultry production, have been rising lately. This situation has increased production cost in poultry farms and is already reflected in the price of poultry products at grocery stores.

There is an EU regulation on meat production that forces the industry to apply an HACCP system, either by official institutions or by companies. This system includes frequent meat sampling for microbiological tests, in order to achieve healthy meat products, hygienic improvements for meat processing, pathogen free samples and to comply with the EU and the national regulations (i.e. EU Decision 2072/05).

This topic has been of special interest to World Poultry (WP) magazine over the past few years. I have seen many articles in WP that have discussed this very important issue from different aspects.

In Indonesia, some poultry industry companies have up-dated their business to the IPI system. This system began in feed manufacturing, poultry breeding and even pharmacy laboratories and has ended up on company farms, poultry partnership businesses, poultry slaughtering and processing of poultry products.

Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) infection will likely continue to persist in poultry, especially in broilers, broiler breeders, and commercial layers in many parts of the world. This is an indication that eradication efforts have not been completely successful so far.

There are so many publications on quality of poultry feed and effects it may have on safety of poultry products for human consumption. Poultry feed can be contaminated with a wide range of substances including microbial pathogens, toxins, and chemicals (1).

Animal activists pose a clear danger to agriculture. Through terrorists acts, blackmail and propaganda they try to mislead the man in the street. Their needs are apparently different to mainstream consumers. Reasoning is almost impossible with these fundamentalists. There is something wrong with their self-esteem.

The poultry industry is a complex network of technical people with different educational backgrounds such as genetics, production management, nutrition, veterinary medicine, and engineering.