4. FEED DEMAND

Feed intensity of livestock production
Scenarios of feed intensity

The traditional livestock production systems have been shown increasingly unable to meet the rising demand for meat and milk; therefore, in the future a larger supply is likely to come from more intensive systems. Livestock production is strongly correlated with human population density and cultivation, and only weakly with the distribution of natural grazing resources (Alexandratos, 1995). This indicates that there is a tendency of livestock production towards less dependency on availability of grazing land, and increasing dependency on feed and forage resources, and agricultural residues in human settlement areas. Although there are no good data on pasture and forage resources, it is clear that their growth is not sufficient to meet the demand for livestock products, and that concentrate feeds, mainly feed grains, have been increasingly used to supplement other fodder (Alexandratos, 1995).

TABLE 4
Livestock production, feed use of cereals, root and tuber crops and oilseeds (in 10⁶ metric tons per year) and feed conversion rates to livestock products in different countries and regions of the world for 1990

Product		All developinga	All developed	Europe	Former USSR	USA	World
Beef, mutton, buffalo and goat meat		25	39	12	10	11	63
Milk		154	383	174	109	67	538
Pork		31	39	22	7	7	70
Poultry meat		14	26	8	3	11	40
Eggs		16	19	7	5	4	35
LPb		84	133	58	28	32	217
Total feed use
	Cereals	163	483	161	137	138	645
	Roots + tubers	75	79	55	21	0	154
	Oilseedsc	0.9	1.9	0.6	0.6	0.4	2.8
Feed intensityd
	Cereals	1.9	3.6	2.8	4.9	4.3	3.0
	Roots + tubers	0.9	0.6	0.9	0.8	0.0	0.7
	Oilseedse	11	14	11	22	12	13

^a "All developing countries" includes more countries than the 93 countries in this study. Therefore the numbers may be slightly different from those in Table 3 and Appendixes 3-8.

^b LP = feed intensity-weighted Livestock Production (million metric ton per year) (see Chapter 2).

^c Direct use of oilseeds as animal feed. Cakes, by-products of oil extraction, are not included. However, the claim on the arable land by feed use of oilseeds is properly addressed, at least for the historical period.

^d Feed intensity = feed use / LP (kg per kg).

^e The feed intensity for oilseeds is expressed as kg per ton.

Feed intensity of livestock production

The statistical data on feed usage of the different crops, obtained indirectly from country supply-utilization accounts, indicate that cereals are the major source of feed, while root and tuber crops, and oilseeds, are somewhat less important. There are important regional differences between the feed intensities, i.e. the amount of feed used per unit of livestock product (Table 4). While the global cereal feed intensity was 3.0 in 1990, it amounted to only 1.9 in the developing countries. The European cereal feed intensity of about 2.8 is close to the global average, while the intensity for the former USSR was close to .5 in 1990. In the period 1970-1990 the feed intensity in the developed countries have shown a decrease of 0.6% per year. In the developing countries there has been a decrease in the 1980s of 1.8% per year, mainly caused by a decrease in China from more than 2 kg/kg to close to 1.5 kg/kg in 1990. No simple explanation can be given for these trends. Increasing efficiency of feed conversion may be involved, but cereals may also have been substituted by other feedstuffs such as fodder's and crop residues.

TABLE 5
Scenarios of the feed intensity of livestock production^a for cereals, root and tuber crops, and plantain and oil crops, for developing countries

Region	Scenario	Cereals		Roots/tubers/plantain		Oil cropsb
		1990	2050c	1990	2050d	1990	2050d
East Asia	Low	2.3	2.1	0.1	0.1	0.00	0.00
	Medium	2.3	2.8
	High	2.3	3.5
China & C.P. Asia	Low	1.6	1.2	1.5	0.7	0.04	0.04
	Medium	1.6	1.6
	High	1.6	2.3
South Asia	Low	0.2	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.10	0.10
	Medium	0.2	0.3
	High	0.2	0.3
Near East in Asia	Low	4.4	4.3	0.2	0.1	0.00	0.00
	Medium	4.4	5.7
	High	4.4	7.2
North Africa	Low	4.7	3.5	0.0	0.0	0.00	0.00
	Medium	4.7	4.7
	High	4.7	5.9
Sub-Saharan Africa	Low	0.4	0.4	0.8	0.5	0.00	0.00
	Medium	0.4	0.5
	High	0.4	1.6
Latin America	Low	2.2	1.8	0.9	0.6	0.05	0.03
	Medium	2.2	2.4
	High	2.2	3.0

^a Feed intensity in kg feed per kg feed intensity-weighted livestock product

^b In oil equivalents

^c For scenario 2 the values are constant after 2010. The differences for 2010 between scenarios 1, 2 and 3 depend on the differences assumed for 2050.

^d The feed intensity for root and tuber crops and oil crops for the period after 2010 are equal to the AT2010 forecast, and no low and high scenarios were developed.

TABLE 6 - Total domestic demand for cereals, the self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) and their use as animal feed stuff for medium feed scenario (see Table 5) for developing countries

TABLE 7
Total domestic demand for root and tuber crops and plantain, the self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) and their use as animal feed stuff for medium feed scenario (see Table 5) for developing countries

	'61/63	'69/71	'79/81	'89/91	2010	2025	2050	2075	2100
ALL DEVELOPING INCL. CHINA
Domestic demand (106 ton)	219	302	339	385	548	696	865	903	937
SSR (%)a	101	102	105	106	103	102	102	102	102
Use as feed (106 ton)	28	45	57	79	89	129	171	201	220
Use as feed (%)a	13	15	17	21	16	19	20	22	24
Feed intensityb	1.3	1.4	1.1	0.9	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.4	0.4
ALL DEVELOPING EXCL. CHINA
Domestic demand (106 ton)	125	168	188	236	373	487	650	694	744
SSR (%)a	102	103	109	110	104	103	103	103	103
Use as feed (106 ton)	15	22	19	22	28	41	64	85	105
Use as feed (%)a	12	13	10	9	8	8	10	12	14
Feed intensityb	0.9	1.0	0.6	0.4	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3

^a SSR and use as feed in % of demand
^b Feed intensity = kg feed/feed intensity weighted livestock production (in kg/kg)

For the total of animal feedstuffs from all sources for all different animal categories, it is difficult to analyse how the feed efficiency and intensity will develop in the future, and what substitutions may take place as a consequence of, for example, changing prices. There are important differences in the ratio of growth rates of livestock output and feed use (Alexandratos, 1995:98). For example, ratio feed input growth: livestock output growth in the Near East/North Africa was 1.6 during 1970-1990 decreasing to 0.9 in the prediction for 1989-2010. Contrary, in Sub-Saharan Africa the ratio input growth : output growth was 0.9 in the period 1970-1990 and the predicted ratio for the period up till 2010 is 1.2, indicating that in the past decades the feed intensity was on the decrease, but that the future intensity may increase again. The mean input growth : output growth ratio for all developing countries was 1.0 in 1970-1990 and the ratio predicted in AT2010 for 1990-2010 was 1.0.

TABLE 8
Total domestic demand for oil crops, the self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) and their use as animal feed stuff for medium feed scenario (see Table 5) for developing countries

	'61/63	'69/71	'79/81	'89/91	2010	2025	2050	2075	2100
ALL DEVELOPING INCL. CHINA
Domestic demand (106 ton)a	44	57	90	141	249	374	554	671	729
SSR (%)b	131	122	113	108	104	101	99	97	96
Use as feed (106 ton)	1	1	1	4	6	10	14	17	18
Use as feed (%)b	2	2	2	3	3	3	2	2	2
Feed intensityc	48	43	30	44	37	37	37	35	34
ALL DEVELOPING EXCL. CHINA
Domestic demand (106 ton)	35	44	72	108	188	283	439	542	588
SSR (%)b	138	128	117	115	111	108	103	101	99
Use as feed (106 ton)	1	1	1	2	3	5	8	10	12
Use as feed (%)b	2	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	2
Feed intensityc	48	44	31	44	37	36	36	34	32

^a Demand and use as feed in harvested biomass, not in oil equivalents
^b SSR and use as feed in % of demand
^c Feed intensity in kg biomass per ton feed intensity-weighted livestock production.

Scenarios of feed intensity

The various types of feed can be interchanged. Here, the question of substitution will be avoided and in the scenarios only the cereal feed intensity will be varied to analyze the impact on total cereal demand and production. The results will allow analysis of the sensitivity of regional land use to variation in feed use. Simple rules have been used to devise three scenarios for the cereal feed intensity of livestock production (Table 5). These rules are:

· The medium scenario (Table 5) is the AT2010 prediction. After 2010 this scenario is based on the feed intensity weighted livestock production discussed in section 2.3, with a 1 percent increase in total feed demand for each % increase in the weighted livestock production. This is equal to the global average for the period 1970-1990. Changes in the feed intensity may occur as a result of a relative shift towards more pork and poultry meat, and egg production and less beef.

· The low scenario uses 0.75 x the prediction from AT2010 for the year 2050.

· In the high scenario the feed intensities for the year 2050 are derived by multiplying the AT2010 predictions for feed intensities by 1.25.

Three groups of regions can be distinguished (Table 5): (i) the regions with the highest current cereal feed intensity (Near East in Asia and North Africa); in the low scenario the feed intensity decreases somewhat, but remains at a higher level than the current European or world average; (ii) the group of regions, including East Asia and Latin America, with currently intermediate feed intensities, for which in the low scenario a slight decrease follows, while the high scenario assumes a growth to the current world (3.5 kg cereals per kg livestock products) and European averages (3.0 kg), respectively; (iii) the third group is formed by China and centrally planned Asian countries, where the feed intensity of the three groups of crops have been on the decrease in the past decade(s) (Tables 6-8) but still at a moderate level. Here, the feed intensity is assumed to decrease further in the low scenario, and to increase to the East Asian 1990 level in the high scenario.

These hypothetical scenarios do not consider the contributions from other sources of animal feed, i.e. grazing, residues, fodder crops and roughage. It should be noted that the land claim of fodder crops is neglected. This may not be an omission because part of these crops may be grown as a cover crop, or in areas or during parts of the year when no other crops can be grown, or after the first crop in regions where the growing season is too short to grow two crops.