Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
by 2050 and beyond, largely because of much
greater population (Thornton
et al
., 2006).
However, annual per capita consumption of
milk and meat in developed countries will still
remain two- to threefold greater compared with
developing countries. Global demand is pro-
jected to be strongest especially in South Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, rising global
incomes will continue to increase purchasing
power for animal products, especially in develop-
ing countries (Thornton, 2010).
This expanding population will increase
demand for food, and doubtless put strain and
stress on the resource base and almost undoubt-
edly increase risk of food insecurity. Certainly,
with the current level of agricultural produc-
tion, securing food for over 9 billion people
(approximately two-thirds of which are pro-
jected to be urban dwellers) will be challenged
significantly. Two critical aspects of agriculture
science and animal production - to improve the
efficiency of animal production (Chapters 2, 3
and VandeHaar and St-Pierre, 2006) and to
increase the human-utilizable productive units
per unit of resource use, while minimizing envi-
ronmental and social costs during the produc-
tion processes - will be critical.
Whether this growth in productivity and
improvement in efficiency can be supported in
truly sustainable animal agriculture production
systems is a crucial and troublesome question.
On the other hand, because it functions at a high
level of intensity in more developed countries,
animal agriculture has formidable challenges to
meet the acceptable sustainability imperatives
for people, planet and profit. That said, food pro-
duction must remain profitable and food must be
affordable for consumers. The most probable
and simplest practical conclusion is that the food
must be near where the people are located to be
sustainable.
by about 30% for both beef and poultry from the
1960s through the mid-2000s, and by about
20% for swine. Global average milk production
per cow and egg production per hen each
increased an estimated 30% over the same time
interval (FAOSTAT, 2010).
These changes in animal agriculture have
been associated with substantial expansions
into areas and use of cultivatable land and pas-
tures (Steinfeld
et al
., 2006). Large conversions
of forest land to crop and pasture lands occurred
in the Amazon basin, Central and West Africa
and South-east Asia, while at the same time
there was some relinquishment of agriculture
land in Eurasian boreal forest and parts of Asia,
and the North and Latin Americas (GEO4,
2007). Major increases in cropland for soybean
production (for oil and protein for humans and
soybean meal for livestock feed) occurred in
Latin America (e.g. in Brazil in the last 40 years).
Additionally, the major increase in use of cereal
grains (including maize) as animal feed occurred
during this period in both developing but espe-
cially developed countries. The proportion of
global use of cereals as animal feeds in develop-
ing countries nearly doubled (to 36% of the
total) from the early 1980s to the late 1990s
(Delgado, 2005).
Increases in animal production are associ-
ated with the types of (sub-) systems being used
in different regions and countries. Confined ani-
mal systems in more industrialized countries
account for much of the increased production of
poultry and pigs, and similar systems have been
installed in developing countries, for example, in
Asia to meet increasing demand for animal
meats. It is projected that at least three-quarters
of total animal production growth by 2030 will
be in confined animal systems (Bruinsma,
2003). However, much less growth of animal
confinement systems will occur in Africa.
The expansion in animal production in
developing countries is expected to occur pri-
marily from escalating animal numbers, espe-
cially of ruminants (Thornton
et al
., 2006). In
intensive mixed plant-animal systems, food-feed
crops (plants or their components that can pro-
vide either human food or livestock feed) have
been essential feedstuff resources for ruminants.
However, Rosegrant
et al
. (2009) predict that
prices for food-feed crops are likely to increase at
a rather more rapid rate than the prices of
Production and supply
Production from animal agriculture increased
dramatically in the last six decades or more with
beef production more than doubling and poul-
try production increasing tenfold worldwide
(FAOSTAT, 2010). These increases resulted from
many more animals and perhaps more dramati-
cally from increased productivity per animal and
per farm. Harvested carcass weights increased
