Nutrition
The overall goal of the nutrition research program at Prairie Swine Centre is to develop nutrition strategies that improve the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of pork production in Canada.
Areas of Research
- Impact of dietary composition on animal health and nutrient requirements
- The impact of disease on nutrient requirements
- Srategies to mitigate the negative effects of mycotoxins
- Incorporation of alternative ingredients in swine diets
- The effect of early-life nutrition on lifetime performance.
This includes research projects to improve our understanding of nutrition, metabolism, and physiology at all stages of production. We work closely with researchers in Saskatchewan, across Canada, and worldwide to create a multidisciplinary research program to address the needs of the pork value chain.
Current themes of the nutrition research program include 1) the impact of dietary composition on animal health and nutrient requirements, 2) the impact of disease on nutrient requirements, 3) strategies to mitigate the negative effects of mycotoxins, 4) incorporation of alternative ingredients in swine diets, and 5) the effect of early-life nutrition on lifetime performance.
Current projects are funded by the Government of Saskatchewan – Agriculture Development Fund, Swine Innovation Porc – Canadian Agricultural Partnership, Evonik Operations GmbH, CJ Bio, Mitacs, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Atta Agyekum, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Originally from Ghana, Atta earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology before moving to Canada to pursue both his master's and Ph.D. degrees in Animal Science at the University of Manitoba, studying under Dr. Martin Nyachoti. His Master’s research focused on growing pig responses to diets containing distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) supplemented with a multicarbohydrase enzyme. His doctoral research focused on understanding the nutritional and metabolic effects of feeding growing pigs a high-fibre diet supplemented with feed enzymes. Following his graduate training, Atta moved to the Prairie Swine Centre in 2016 to pursue postdoctoral research with Drs. Columbus and Beaulieu, where he investigated the potential of processed straw to enhance the welfare and reproductive performance of pregnant sows in a loose housing system and the benefits on their offspring's lifetime performance. He then worked as a Research Associate with Dr. Andrew Van Kessel on the Pig Gut Microbiome project at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2020, Atta was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. He was the principal investigator on a research project with a world-renowned feed additive company to investigate grapefruit extracts as a safer alternative feed additive to ractopamine for stimulating muscle tissue growth in fattening pigs. He was also a co-PI on a Danish pig levy fund to investigate the biological basis of feed efficiency in fattening pigs. Atta returned to Canada in 2022 to join Trouw Nutrition Canada as the Swine Validation Research Lead on several Local and Global projects. In July 2025, Atta took on the role of Research Scientist at the Prairie Swine Centre, where he leads the Nutrition Research Program. His research priorities include: 1) developing nutritional strategies to enhance pig resilience against environmental and management stressors; 2) improving nutrient use and efficiency in swine; and 3) evaluating alternative feed resources and quantifying their nutrients to maximize their use in pig feed.
Isis Lima, M.Sc.
Ph.D. Student
Originally from Recife, Brazil, Isislayne Estevão de Lima earned her undergraduate degree in Animal Science from the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE) in 2019. She completed her master’s degree at UFRPE in 2022, specializing in animal nutrition and feeding, with a research focus on alternative feeds for ruminants. In 2023, Isis participated in the Ohio International Intern Program at The Ohio State University, where she gained hands-on experience in swine production, working as a trainee at a farrow-to-wean company. In 2025, she began her Ph.D. studies at the University of Saskatchewan under the supervision of Dr. Atta Agyekum and Dr. Deborah Adewole. Her current research focuses on evaluating and optimizing peri-weaning management to enhance piglets’ performance, welfare, and resilience, and will be conducted at the Prairie Swine Centre. After completing his graduate training, Dan moved to Houston, Texas, to complete post-doctoral training under Dr. Teresa Davis at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Centre, Baylor College of Medicine, where his research focused on examining nutrient regulation of muscle growth and development of nutritional therapies to improve growth of low-birth weight infants, using the pig as a model for the human infant. Dan joined the Prairie Swine Centre in 2015 and leads the nutrition research program. Dan’s current research focuses on nutrition in the nursery and grower-finisher phase of pig production and on development of research studies utilizing the pig as a model for human nutrition and health.
Taiwo J. Erinle, M.Sc.
Ph.D. Student
Hailing from Sagamu, South-Western Nigeria. Taiwo earned a B.Tech degree in Animal Nutrition and Biotechnology from the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria, in 2018. Following this, he got admitted into a master’s degree program in Animal Science at Dalhousie University, where he earned his MSc degree in 2022 under Dr. Deborah Adewole. His MSc research evaluated the antibiotic replacement of potentials of grape pomace and red osier dogwood extract as sustainable solutions to combat disease incidence in broiler chickens production challenged with Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) or SE lipopolysaccharide. In addition to poultry, Taiwo’s quest for well-rounded professionalism in monogastric animal nutritional research motivated his research interest in swine nutritional physiology. He is currently in his Ph.D. degree program under the supervision of Dr. Dan Columbus. After completing his Ph.D., Taiwo hopes to remain in academia as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, where he would like to conduct high-quality poultry and swine research to improve monogastric animal productivity.
