164

MEETINGS

292 attend 5thLatin AmericanCongress

Alolat of 292 persons from 29countries attended the 5thLatin American Congress on

Fats and Oils Processing held Nov.17-18, 1993. aI the Margarita Hiltonon Margarita Island, Venezuela.

The congress was preceded by atwo-day shorl course on unit opera-tions and oilseed processing attendedby 90 persons from J 7 countries.Some short course registrants alsoattended the congress. Both eventshad simultaneous translation betweenEnglish and Spanish.

The Latin American Section ofAOCS organized the congress, whichincluded an opening mixer. two daysof technical sessions and an exhibitionfeaturing 31 booths representing 27companies. Congress participantsreceived copies of those papers andabstracts that were submitted beforethe congress.

Alfredo D'Ascoli. president of theLatin American Section and general

The follo .....ing articles .....ereprepared by Barbara FitchHaumann, senior editorl ...vriterfor INFORM.

chairperson for the event, and PamelaJ. White, AOCS president. welcomedattendees to the congress. White pre-senred an informational talk on AOCSactivities during the Wednesday lun-cheon that included a section businessmeeting.

"We're proud of the Latin Amen-can Section for pushing 10 get orga-nized and pulling together." Whiletold meeting attendees. D'Ascoli.meanwhile. noted that "the mostimportant things at these congressesare the personal contacts. the friend-ships you can make and the networkof knowledge that is formed."

D'Asccli dedicated the congress to

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the memory of colleagues who haddied during the past year: two DeSmet Colombia executives (JorgeMcAllister and Alvaro Conez) whodied in an airplane crash during May1993 and three chemical engineers(Javier Ayala and Anuro Ayala fromEspequiarsa Venezuela and oil consul-tant Jose Rojas Salazar) who died in agas explosion in Venezuela duringOctober 1993. Oscar Linares ofVenezuela was technical chairpersonfor the congress.

During the business meeting,D'Ascoli asked the section to approvethe selection of consultant EduardoDubinsky, president of the AsociacionArgentina de Grasas y Acehes(ASAGA), as section vice presidentduring the last six months ofD' Ascott 's term as president.D'Ascoli noted that a ballot recentlyhad been mailed to section membersto determine whether the sectionshould hold annual or biennial con-gresses. The next scheduled congressis a meeting in Brazil during 1995.The section also plans to hold a busi-ness meeting and luncheon duringMay at the 1994 AOCS Annual Meet-ing and Exposition in Atlanta. Gecr-gia, and is discussing plans to holdone or more short courses in LatinAmerica during 1994.

In his treasurer's report at the lun-cheon, Antonio Cardozo reponed thesection had a balance of slightly over$21,300 in its account.

The congress featured fourkeynote speakers: consultant DavidErickson outlined the fundamentaltechnical goals in oil refining. con-sutrant Jorge Castellanos discussedcontinuous decanting to make acidu-lation easy, Virgilio Bosch of Prom-

INFORM, VOl,S, no. 2 (February 199.4)

165

A view of the Margarita Hmon, venue 01 the 5th latin Ametlean Congress

gal spoke on the nutritional aspectsof palm oil. and A. Philip Handel ofDrexel University discussed strate-gies to improve fried-food quality.

said. To overcome this. he recom-mended a minimum of 15 minutes'holding time once water has beenadded.

"Another factor in hydratability ofgums is the relative contents ofhydratable and ncnhydratable phos-phatides," Erickson said. Factors thataffect the nonhydratable phosphatidecontent of oils include oilseed dam-age in the field, handling damage.storage damage. healing for flaking.holding flakes before extraction.

excess heal for solvent removal andcrude oil storage.

Erickson noted that physical refin-ing is nor commonly used in the Unit-ed States because it does not producea good enough product with adequateshelf life. Instead. he recommendedlong-mix caustic refining for soybeanoil to provide extra water to hydratethe gums (phosphatides). "If you do adouble wash. it means you can useless bleaching earth," he said.

Goals in caustic refining includereducing free Iany acids. color andphosphatide content as much as possi-ble. Erickson noted that some compa-nies chose short-mix systems becausethey are less expensive to install."Installation of a short-mix systembecause it is cheaper is a poor deci-sion because operational costs andproblems will quickly eat up any sav-ings realized in the original purchase,"he explained. noting that potentialcosts and problems include higherlosses of neutral oil. emulsion prob-lems in primary separation and waterwashing. as well as carry-over of soapand phosphat ides to the bleaching,hydrogenation and deodorizationsteps .

Properly bleached fats and oils willcause minimal problems in further

Processing talksIn his talk. Erickson covered degum-ming, caustic refining. bleaching anddeodorization. The most common fail-ure in hydration is not allowing suffi-cient time for the desired reactionbetween the phosphatides and water toachieve maximum hydration. Erickson

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tNFORM. Vol. 5. no. 2 (February 1994)

166

MEETINGS

processing and will result in the bestflavor stability. Goals of hydrogena-tion. he added, are to achieve thehighest possible activity consistentwith control of selectivity while usingthe least possible amount of catalyst.

Deodorization, the last step in oilprocessing, is used to produce an oilwith low or no flavor, low color andlow free fatty acid levels. "Of len.deodorization is looked al as a step tomake up for all the mistakes madeearlier. This is just nor true. If you areworking with a bad product. you stillwill produce a bad product," Ericksonpointed out.

Hans Beckman of Tetra Laval Fats& Oils' Johnson-Loft Engineers Divi-sion furthered the discussion of fatsand oils refining by describing notonly chemical (caustic) refining butalso physical refining. Beckman notedthat increasing demand for higherquality palm oil has resulted in a com-bined pre-stripping. chemicallphysicalrefining line to reduce high free fattyacid contents in fruit oils before alkalirefining and deodorization. "In theprocess. the advantage of both thechemical and physical refining meth-ods is present. such as high qualityend products similar to chemicallyrefined oil and low losses similar towhat is achieved with physical refin-ing." Beckman explained. noting thattwo such plants-one handlingcoconut oil and one handling palm

oil--currently are in operation in theFar East.

The process. he said. includes acidconditioning. pre-bleaching, pre-strip-ping, alkali refining, bleaching anddeodorizing.

Beckman described the use of apacked-column. or thin-film. deodor-izer. which uses less steam in refiningthan conventional methods. "With thepacked column well established as aneffective free fatty acid (FFA) pre-stripper, the possibility of reducinghigh FFA contents in fruit oils beforechemical refining has become an eco-nomically competitive proposal forproducing high quality RBD (refined,bleached deodorized) oils." he said.

Meanwhile, Etienne Deffense ofS.A. Fractionnement Tirtiaux. Bel-gium. reported on progress with steamrefining, which he had described atthe AOCS Annual Meeting in Ana-heim earlier in 1993.

Deffense noted that steam refininghas been conducted in a turbo pilotplant deodorizer with high efficiency.A blend of soybean oil and stearicadd was used as a model to compareexperimental results with theoreticalpredictions. The technique. used todeodorize commercial soybean oiland to physically refine commercialpalm oil, resulted in low strippingsteam consumption and low neutraloil losses. In the process, steam isinjected into the oil to generate bub-

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btes. thus increasing the efficiency ofevaporation.

Deffense reponed that one appli-cation of the turbo pilot plantdeodorizer process has been to pro-duce "golden" palm oil. which isrich in natural carotene and 10CO-

pherols. through physical refining.He noted that the Tirtiaux processhad made it possible 10 significantlyreduce refining temperatures 10 pre-vent loss of natural antioxidants.

Discussing continuous acidulation.meanwhile. Jorge Castellanos notedthat most U.S. manufacturers useacidulation to obtain fatty acids fromsoapstock. a by-product of causticrefining. The three types of acidula-tion used include a batch system. acontinuous centrifugal system and acontinuous decanting system.

The latter is most useful and effi-cient and should be installed by allthose using chemical refining. Castel-lanos said.

Nutritional aspectsThe only talk to focus on nutritionalaspects of fats and oils was presentedby keynote speaker Virgilio Bosch, aphysician and researcher in Caracas.Venezuela. who spoke on the nutri-tional aspects of palm oil.

Bosch noted that historicallyVenezuela has used palm oil primarilyfor soap manufacturing rather than forfood use. "Instead of producing palm

INFORM. Vol. s. no. 2 (February 1994)

167

oil. we became sesame seed oil pro-ducers," he noted. During the 19705,with a decline in domestic sesameseed oil production. Bosch was askedwhich oil Venezuelans should usc.Although palm oil production wasbecoming more popular elsewhere atthat time, he cautioned against usingpalm oil in the diet because of its cate-gorization as saturated fat. which hadbeen linked to raising serum choles-terol levels.

Based on his research since then,however. Bosch said his fears wereunfounded. "My research has shownthat palm olein does nOI increase plas-ma cholesterol:' he explained. Inten-sive studies conducted in Venezuelahave looked at the effect on serumcholesterol of 100% palm olein in thefonn of oil or margarine in the diet,compared with a diet containing amixture of commercial oils and 50%palm olein. and another using regularcommercial oils. "Our results, aftertwo years of study. have shown nochange in low-density lipoproteincholesterol. Thus we see the benefit ofusing palm olein in the diet inVenezuela at less than 50% or even at50% of the total Iar." Bosch said.

by the food increases. Heat transferproperties also are affected, andmore heat is used to evaporate waterrather than cook the food. Adsorbentmaterials can remove surfactants andimprove the frying process 10 givehigher quality food products," hesaid.

Turnover rate is especially impor-tant in maintaining high-quality fryingfat and fried food. according to Han-del. "In some situations, it is better todecrease the number of fryers used toincrease the turnover fat." he said.Many operators filter the fat toimprove food quality. Passive filtersremove suspended solids and insolu-ble materials. while active filtrationremoves soluble materials by adsorp-tion. Passive filters. he noted. cannotremove soluble contaminants.

"We still have a lot to learn aboutfrying and all the factors that influ-ence me process." Handel said. point- (contjnu~d on pag~169)

Fried foodsThe final keynote speaker, A. PhilipHandel of Drexel University. mappedout strategies to improve fried-foodquality. Handel noted that in frying,the most important considerations arethe frying fat, the food being fried, thefrying conditions and monitoring foodquality.

"The real test of frying perfor-mance is the quality of the food thatcomes out of the fryer." he said.

Handel has used interfacial ten-sion in his laboratory as a measure ofthe miscibility of frying fat andwater (the major component offoods) and of the overall effect ofsurfactants in the system. "At thesurface of a food item, water fromthe food comes into intimate contactwith the fat and the closer the con-tact. the greater the ability of the fatto be absorbed into the food. As fatsare used for frying. surfactant con-centrations increase due to oxidativeand thermal reactions. interfacialtension decreases and fat absorption

ing out that each operation is unique.However. he added, "Interfacial ten-sion may be a useful objective mea-surement of me condition of a fryingfat, and active filtration may be usefulin improving overall productivity andfood quality."

Other processing aspectsSpeaking both days of the congress,Felix Arturo Guerrero of GraceColombia S.A. discussed improve-ments in modified physical refining tofractionate palm oil by using silica.Guerrero cited a number of benefitsfrom this process. including increasedfractionation capacity and improvedproduct quality. He also said mat palmoil refined using silica showedimproved quality characteristics forfrying applications.

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INFORM, Vol. S. no. 2 (FebruOfY 1994)

169

MEETINGS

Keynote speakers

.......-[continued from pag(' 167)

spoke on a novel acid refining pro-cess using silica adsorbent. He notedthai while this has been carried outin a laboratory study. it is now beinginvestigated in a commercial opera-tion. Meanwhile. Rosalina Conde-marfn of Arcillas Activadas AndinasS.A. discussed the trends and role ofactivated clays in bleaching palmoil.

The First day of sessions alsoincluded a presentation by OrivaldoBalloni of Engecima EngenhariaComercio y Industria Ltdn. of Brazilconcerning a continuous alkalinerefining neutralization process forvegetable oils that eliminates theneed for a water wash step; a talk byJohn H. Henderson of EngelhardCorp. on "the press effect" inadsorptive bleaching: and a compari-son of edible oil plant wastewaterdischarge in the United States andLatin America, presented by GilesFarmer of Applied Engineering &Science.

During concurrent sessions on thesecond day of the congress. talksincluded such topics as new develop-ments in fractionating fats and oils(Marc Kellens of De Smet): hydro-genation of sulfur-containing feed-stocks with nickel catalysts (DouglasOkonek of Engelhard Corp.); anoilseed processor's experiences inirnplemenring 10la1 quality manage-ment (Reginald Bacchus or NationalFlour Mills Lid. of Trinidad and

-- v__

effect of Ihe extraction process ofsesame seed oils on the quality ofisolated protein residues (SheilaPolanco of Mavesa S.A.); and treat-men! for the prevention of corrosionin steam systems at oil plants (pabloG. Di Lione of Grace-Aquatec).

The two sessions closed with a pre-senrauon by Marvelis Delgado Guz-man of CITEC, Venezuela. on yieldsand characterization of pumpkin seed.and a talk describing the automationof an oil plant owned by Oleica C.A.in Venezuela by Rafael Vasquez ofTelemechanique and Henri Cadenas ofOtelca.

Nations represented by registrantsincluded not only Western Hemi-sphere countries. but also severalEuropean nations, as well as India.

Sponsoring organizationsCompanies and organizations thatprovided support to the congressincluded the American SoybeanAssociation, Cargill de Venezuela,Ccpcsa C.A" the De Smet Group,Fulmont Argilas Ativadas Ltda.,Pundesot. Grace Venezuela S.A.,Mavesa S.A .. Oleica C.A., Oil-DriCorp. of America, the ProquimGroup, Quimica Sumex S.A. de C.V.and Samtec.

Short courseAttendees to the short coursereceived an overview of variousoilseeds and of oilseed processing.Insrrucrcrs ror the course were DickFiala of PSI Process Systems Inc. and

Tobago); stabilization of fish oilswith propcleo. a natural antioxidant(Eduardo Mendez of Catedra de Fisi-coqufmica. Uruguay); a new refiningcentrifuge (Roberto Diez of TetraLaval Fats and Oils): standardizationof the analysis of solid-fat contentsby nuclear magnetic resonance (Woj-ciech Draminski of Mavesa S.A.);physical refining of soybean oil(Christian Mantilla Barrera of San-tandereana de Acehes S.A.): and riceoil extraction and refining (AntonioPandolfi of Uruguay).

Also presented were talks com-paring the effects of vitamin-basedanuoxidams and synthetic antioxi-dants on commercial fats and oils(Pout Frandsen of Gnndsted Prod-ucts); possible uses of spent bleach-ing clay (Carlos Martinez of Qufmi-ca Sumex S.A. de C, V.); functionalproperties and applications of foodemulsifiers (Jargen Madsen ofGrtndsted Products): a review ofantioxidants and their effects on var-ious oils (Amalia Calvo of UOP); therelationship between adsorbent typeand oxidative stability in palm oilbleaching (David Brooks of Ott-DriCorp. of America); determining nat-ural antioxidants in sesame oil in dif-ferent stages of refining (Marfa Ale-jandra Regifo-Ducharne of MavesaS.A.); measurement of fats and oilscontent in food products using a low-resolution pulse nuclear magneticresonance process analyzer (LindaSp arafor a and Henry Stronks ofBruker Spectrospin (Canada) Ltd.]:

INFORM. Vol. 5. no. 2 (february 1994)

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MEETINGS

Short course talks,presented in English, weretranslaled Inlo Spanish for

attendee ••

consultant JohnHeilman, who alsoserved as coursechairperson.

"It is very impor-Ian I 10 understandthe oilseeds forproper handling.You have to becareful how you

OJckFiala handle theseoilseeds right from

the start," Fiala told attendees at thebeginning of the course.

Defined during the course were suchterms as "evaporation,' "distillation:'"stripping:' "absorption:' "adsorption,""humidification," "dehumidification,""extraction", "leaching," "crysralllza-tion,' "drying," "desclventizing,' "sizereduction," "mixing of solids," "agita-tion," "mechanical separation" and"chemical reactors," Covered were bulksolids transport, fluid mechanics. heattransfer, mass transfer, oilseed recep-tion, cleaning, seed drying, storage,scaling, cracking, delinring. dehulling,flaking, pressing. oil filtration,

expanders, extrac-tion, desolvenuz-ing, toasting, dry-ing, cooling, distil-lation, solventrecovery. meal Silo-ing, meal storageand shipping, andoil storage and

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INFORM.Vol. 5. no. 2 (february 19(4)

171

Accompanying exhibit features 31 boothsThe 5th Latin American Congress.held at the Margarita Hilton on Mar-garita Island, Venezuela, in Novem-ber was accompanied by an exhibitfeaturing 31 booths representing 27companies and associations.

Many of the exhibitors said theywere present at the congress to eitherenter or become more visible in theLatin American fats and oils pro-cessing market. The following arehighlights from the exhibit.

Britannia Soap Machinery Co. ofEngland, which makes a range ofmachinery for the soap industry,entered the Central American marketa year ago and now is interested inthe South American market. Thecompany has three agents assignedto Latin America. "Industry is mov-ing toward one plant that can make awide range of products and not justone product," a company representa-tive said, noting that Britannia sup-plies such technology. The companyalready has orders in Latin America,with equipment enroute to Nicaraguaand a soap plant installation in Hon-duras that was to go online inDecember. "There is a large demandfor soaps and (an) increasing demandfor a wider variety of soaps in LatinAmerica," a company spokesmansaid.

Westfalia Separator de VenezuelaCA, meanwhile, noted that increas-ing interest in palm oil in Latin

America, particularly in Brazil,Colombia, Venezuela and theDominican Republic, is creatingmore demand for its centrifuges forpalm oil recovery and refining in theregion. "We're seeing more palmplantations here and bigger mills forpalm oil recovery," a companyspokesman said.

Fractionnement Tirriaux S.A.,which provides equipment and plantsfor palm oil fractionation includingphysical refining equipment, wasfeaturing new technology to produce"golden" palm oil, which retains thevitamins and antioxidants that can bedestroyed in processing. The newprocess can be used to provide natu-ral antioxidants and colorants inmargarine, for example. Companyrepresentatives predicted interest inpalm oil will grow due to the AndeanPact, which has created a free tradezone among Venezuela. Colombia,Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Exhibiting to gain more namerecognition in Latin America,Masiero Industrial, a Brazilianequipment manufacturer, featured itsrefining equipment for soybean oiland extraction equipment for bothsoybean and palm oils.

EMI Corp., which designs andsupplies vegetable oil refineries, dis-cussed the refining processes avail-able, with special emphasis ondeodorizing systems, physical refin-

From left, Valerio Ami1car,Roger Fernandez andJose Pereira enjoythe opening reception.

ing and flash desolventizing, whichproduces high PDI (protein dis-persibility index) white flakes forhuman consumption from extractedsoybean flakes.

Two representatives of theNational Cottonseed Products Asso-ciation (NCPA), which promotes theuse of cottonseed oil, were on handto meet with customers and potentialcustomers in Mexico and LatinAmerica. NCPA publishes a quarter-ly newsletter in Spanish, which pre-sents technical information, newsand production figures for primebleachable summer yellow cotton-seed oil.

At its booth, Roskamp Championfeatured its flaking mills for a widevariety of oilseeds and a new crack-ing mill that offers larger capacityand faster roll change time.

Omnion Inc., meanwhile, dis-cussed its oxidative stability instru-ment with attendees. Following thecongress, a company representativetraveled to Valencia, Venezuela, toinstall the instrument in a Cargillrefinery.

Importquim S.A., a Venezuelandistributor of raw materials and partof the Proquim Group, representssuch companies as United Catalystsin Venezuela. It has three largewarehouses, in Maracaibo, Puerto

[continued 011page 173)

INFORM, Vol.5, no. 2 (February 1994)

173

icominued from pagl! 171)

Cabello and Caracas. lis message toattendees was that it could providelarge quantities of raw materialsfrom the companies it represents. [talso was seeking other companiesinterested in entering the Venezuelanmarket.

Cenatec C.A. of Venezuela wason hand to represent Metrohm Met-tler and to promote a wide range ofanalytical equipment for laborato-ries. including process control ana-lyzers. and offer technical support.

Also featuring analytical instru-mentation, Bruker Spcctrospin(Canada) Ltd. demonstrated its solid-fat index pulsed NMR instrument,the NMS 120 NMR process analyzer.applicable for extraction. refiningand processing. A companyspokesman noted interest by LatinAmerican processors for such instru-mentation because their customers inEurope and North American usestandards based on solid-fat index.

The De Smet Group. which lookover Usine de Wecker two years ago,announced to attendees that it sup-plies new products for the palm oilextraction equipment industry. Also,the group featured fractionation tech-nology. In addition. its Rosedownsdivision introduced a new generationor screw presses in Latin America \0

upgrade existing facilities.

MEETINGS

Ellseo Gonll:llell: Ind RosannaCondemlrin 01 ArcltIBsActivadas Andlnas S.A. (lett)answer questions at the laporteGroup booth.

Meanwhile, representatives ofCrown Iron Co. and its Wurster &Sanger Division were on hand tointroduce to Latin America the newCrown hot dehulling system for soy-beans as well as a complete new linefor Crown-margarine and shorten-ing equipment and plants. includingthe Chemetator high-pressurescraped surface heat exchangers.These latest offerings are sold byCrown Chemtech as a result ofCrown's purchase of Chemtech inthe United Kingdom earlier in 1993.

Also exbibiting , American Col-loid offered a new bleaching earthproduct line designed for more effi-cient performance for Latin Ameri-can-produced oils, such as palm andcorn oils, and edible animal fats. Arepresentative noted the company isinvestigating the needs and require-ments for regenerating clays in LatinAmerica. In addition, it introducedLeslie Tuer of Corbanca C.A. basedin Caracas as its representative forVenezuela, Colombia and theCaribbean Basin.

Engelhard Corp. introduced twonew catalyst products at thecongress. One (N545) is designed forcanol a oil hydrogenation, while thesecond (N645) is designed for SOy-bean oil hydrogenation.

Fulmont Argilas Artvedas(Lapone Group) has activated earthplants in Brazil and Peru to serve

Latin America. Representatives wereon hand to explain to clients andpotential customers its products andservices.

Meanwhile, Grindsted Products atthis exhibit spent much of its timediscussing additives for margarineand antioxidants for oils.

Represemectones Lufran C.A. ofVenezuela, which represents a vari-ety of foreign equipment manufac-turers for the fats and oils industry,featured Egon Keller pressing equip-ment for oitseeds and cotton delint-ing, Pnpelcra del Besos filteringpaper, Gersrenberg & Agger crystal-lization and plasticizing equipmentfor margarine manufacturing, NorskHydro Electrolysers hydrogenationequipment. SIG packaging for mar-garines and Weber + Seelander soapequipment.

Gerstenberg & Agger A/S, mean-while, had its own booth at which itdescribed new equipment for pro-ducing low-fat margarines and a newpackaging machine for puff pastries.

Hutchison-Hayes Separators Inc.was present to introduce its replace-ment parts for high-speed verticaldisc separators and new horizontaldecanting centrifuges to the LatinAmerican fats and oils industry,Spokesmen noted the demand forreplacement parts that help extend

(COfllinu~d on page 175)

INFORM. Vol. 5, 1"10. 2 (February 1994)

175

MEETINGS

From left, Edgar Botero talks with John Henderson, Doug Okonek and Herman Beckmannat the En~lhard booth.

[continuedfrom page /73)

the life of existing facilities withouthuge capital investments.

Pure-Flo Products Group, a divi-sion of Oil-Dri Corp .• which intro-duced its bleaching clays and adsor-bents into the Latin America marketduring the past tWO years, this timeemphasized four new products pro-duced through surface activation.Steve Azzarello has been appointedcommercial manager for LatinAmerican sales to work full limewith customers in the region. Thecompany is the only producer of claybased on the mineral horrnite and hasdeveloped this process to provide animproved quality product.

Grace Venezuela S.A. emphasizedits TriSyl silica for use in a palm oilprocess, which company representa-tives described in the technical ses-sions.

So yatech Inc. was on hand toincrease the circulation and aware-ness of the Soya Bluebook in LatinAmerica. The 1994 edition will bethe last that covers only the soybeanindustry. In 1995, plans are toexpand to include other oilseeds andalso to make the data available onCD-ROM in five languages. "TheLatin American market is veryimportant to soybeans. We are tryingto establish a presence here as a pre-lude to having the Soya Bluebook go

multilingual." according to PeterGolbitz of Soyatech.

Fratelli Gianazza S.p.A. was onhand to promote both oleochemicalsequipment as well as refining plantsfor edible applications. Thus far, theoleochemicals industry is lagging inLatin America because most soapsare being produced by neutral fatsvia saponification, and not throughfatty acids. In the edible area, how-ever, there are new plants being builtto physically refine palm oil, aspokesman said.

LFC Lochem BV emphasized var-ious filters used in edible vegetableoil industry, including replacementfilter leaves for existing installations."There is a lot of interest in LatinAmerica to replace old filter presseswith new type pressure leaf filters;'a spokesman said.

CMB of Italy represented theBallestra Group at the congress.CMB emphasized plants for process-ing and refining edible oils as well asequipment for oleochemical plants.Battestra's interests. meanwhile,covered detergents and soap manu-facturing. CMB promoted a unit toprevent wastewater pollution inrefining plants.

SGI Merchant Traders and Engi-neers, Plastic Containers Divison ,meanwhile. featured packaging sys-tems including PET edible oil bon le-making machinery, filling systems

and facility engineering. Most inter-est forcused on turnkey systems forin-house PET plastic bottling sys-tems for edible oils as well as in-house plastic packaging operationsfor margarine.

Both the American Oil Chemists'Society and the Asociacion Argenti-na de Grasas y Aceites (ASAGA)had informational booths at thecongress to provide attendees infor-marion about those organizations.

SCI hears reporton Indian oilseedsThis report was prepared forINFORM by K.G. Berger, a consul-rant in London, England,K.T. Achaya, formerly at the FoodResearch Institute, Mysore. gave alecture entitled "Indian Oilseed Pro-cessing Scenario" at a Nov. 9. 1993,meeting in London of the Oils andFats Group of the Society of Chemi-cal Industry.

In 1929-1934, India exported onemillion tons of cilseeds. two milliontons of oil and three millions tons ofoil cake after satisfying domesticrequirements, he said.

But by 1965, oilseed productionwas insufficient to meet domesticdemand. In 1987-1988, 1.8 milliontons of oils and fats were beingimported, a huge drain on India'shard currency reserve, Achaya said.

Since then, oilseed production hasincreased until in 1992-1993 sup-plies of 7.6 miUion tons of oil wereestimated against an estimateddemand of 7.0 million Ions. Achayadescribed the factors contributing tothis remarkable achievement.

Productivity of cilseeds in India iswell below world averages, mainlybecause Indian crops are almostentirely dependent on natural rain-fall.

In 1980-1981, only 14.3% ofoilseeds were grown under irriga-lion. By 1988-1989, this hadincreased to 20%. Correspondingyields (in kg/hal were: for ground-nut, 736 and 1.132; for rape mustard,560 and 906; for sesame, 180 and

INFORM.vcr. 5, 00. 2 (February 19(4)

176

MEETINGS

274: for safflower 456 and 546; forsoybean. 728 and 892. For sevenmajor otlseeds. the yield improve-ment averaged nearly 50%.

The volume of groundnurs. a dif-ficult crop. being grown hasremained static. while rape mustardhas tripled and sunflower doubled.Soybeans are gaining popularity as acrop. Oil palm will nOI become amajor source, Achaya said.

Oil from minor sources such ascottonseed. rice bran and various treeseeds. including sal, mahua, mangokernel and neem, contributes about Imillion Ions.

The traditional village ghani-ananimal powered mortar andpestle-is being rapidly supersededby power expellers with or withoutsolvent extraction. Consequently theyield and quality have improved.

Organizationally. the NationalDairy Development Board has sue-cesfully set up Growers Federations.which cooperate in larger. more effi-cient processing units. Up to onemillion farmers are involved. TheDairy Board also intervenes in themarket to even out price variations.Restrictions on the blending of dif-ferent oils have been lifted toincrease flexibility in the use of sup-plies.

A Technology Mission onOltseeds was set up with funds todemonstrate the benefits of new vari-eties and of various agriculturalinputs.

The challenge of the future willbe to ensure that supplies keep pacewith population increases and thedemand generated by higherincomes, Achaya said.

Biotechnology may bea key to food supplyWorld food production now requiresc ul tivar ion of some 5.8 millionsquare miles globally, equivalent tomore than 80% of South America'sland mass, Tom Mcnermou of theMonsanto organization told listenersat the Illinois Commodity Confer-

ence late in 1993.By the mid-21st century. if farm-

ers are barred from increasing yieldper acre through use of improvedagrichemicals or biotechnologyadvances. the world will need 30-40million square miles to feed its bur-geoning population. McDermottsaid, or an area roughly equivalent tothe combined land masses of Northand South America plus Asia.

The Illinois Commodity Confer-ence was a joint meeting of the com-moduy organizations representingthat state's corn and soybean grow-ers as well as its beef and sheepfarmers. The groups previously heldseparate annual meetings.

McDermolt told the group thatcotton varieties with biotechnologi-cally implanted insect resistanceshould need only half as many appli-cations of pesticides as do nonresis-tant varieties. Currently. pesticidesmay be applied as many as 10 timesto regular couon varieties during thegrowing season.

TradeFormer U.S. Secretary of AgricultureEdward Madigan told the farmersthat the 1992 Blair House agreementon resolution of oilseed trade dis-putes between the United States andthe European Community (EC) isimportant because some of the issuesit addresses were not part of theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs andTrade (GAlT) negotiations.

Specifically. Madigan said thepart of the Blair House accord inwhich the EC agreed to permanentlylimit its oilseed ucreuge to 5.128 mil-lion hectares was not part of theGAlT talks. That limitation will beincreasingly important as Europeanand global populations increase.Madigan said.

Another former U.S. Secretary ofAgriculture. Earl Butz , told thegroup that during the 1990s globalpopulation would increase approxi-mately 20% to about 6 billion peopleand continue 10 grow by about I bil-lion persons every 10 years. Madi-gan noted this is equivalent to aglobal increase equal to the currentU.S. population about every 2.5years.

Madigan told the group that U.S.corn and soybean producers shouldbenefit virtually immediately fromimplementation of the North Ameri-can Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA). Prior to NAFTA. U.S.exports to Mexico faced a 24% tariffat the border while Mexican exportsto the United States were subject to a6% tariff.

Future legislationEugene Moos. the current undersec-retary of agriculture of internationalaffairs and commodity programs.stressed the importance of openagricultural trade to the U.S. farmeconomy. Moos told the growersthat a prime concern in the 1995Farm Bill will be to cut costs. Madi-gan had told the group that abouttwo-thirds of the agriculture budgetis in food programs for the poor orother groups. leaving one-thirdfocused on farm-oriented agricultur-al topics. Moos said one goal of theClinton Administration is to reducethe number of USDA employees toabout 90.000 from its present113.000.

in discussing agricultural trade.Moos noted that Japan imports about$8.2 billion of U.S. fann goods eachyear. or approximately 20% of totalU.S. farm exports. China importsabout $1 billion in U.S. farm prod-ucts. he said. The Illinois meetingwas held about the time leaders ofnations bordering the Pacific Oceanwere meeting in Seattle, Washing-ton. to discuss economic policycoordination. Mexico currentlyranks No.3 behind China and Cana-da in imports of U.S. agriculturalproducts with approximately $4 bil-lion annually. Moos said. TheNAFTA agreement should result inan additional $2 billion annualimports from the United States byMexico. he said.

More than 600 persons attendedthe Illinois Commodity Conference.Several talks focused on the GAlTnegotiations that were scheduled tobe concluded Dec. 15. after thedeadline for this issue. and with afederal decision also due Dec. 15 onuse of corn-derived ethanol in U.S.automotive fuel supplies. •

INFORM. Vol. 5. no. 2 (February 1994)