To use information means to use the experiences of others to make decisions. In fields where experience is lacking it can be gained by conducting experiments. People who have available experience in a special field are called experts. In each field of economics production is subject to changes of several factors such as price and availability of the raw material needed for the special type of production. Animal production depends mainly on the availability and prices of useful feeds, and should be regarded as one type of production among others, the different types being more or less correlated.

From time to time changes in industrial or other types of production occur. New materials, often regarded at first as worthless wastes, may be found to be suitable as feeds, but thousands of tonnes of such a new material may have been destroyed before its feed value was established. In other cases the new material may have been given to animals but without success, causing illness or reducing efficiency. The reason for the failure may be that no previous experience was available, no experiments had been made previously or were known and no expert could be asked. In other words, no information was available about the nutritional value of the specific material.

The situation of deficiency of information is comparable to the situation of deficiency of feeds. If regular feeds are not available in adequate quantum or at acceptable prices, then interest in the use of by-products and wastes increases. If no results from research in that specific field are published and no experience is available, one has to look for ‘by-products’ of knowledge. Anybody anywhere in the world may have analysed a sample of a feed for a specific purpose. The result may have been forgotten after the particular question had been answered. But perhaps some years later this piece of knowledge could be used for a quite different purpose. The experience of others then becomes valuable.