Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PART I
Present and future supply of feedstuffs
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CHAPTER 1
Agronomic and political factors
influencing feedstuff use
R.W. Dean
Dean Agricultural Associates, London, UK
CAB International 2002. Poultry Feedstuffs: Supply, Composition and Nutritive Value
(eds J.M. McNab and K.N. Boorman) 3
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4 R.W. Dean
The evolution of large-scale urbanized industrial societies in the west during the
last quarter of the 19th century and the first 75 years of the present century was
characterized by significant increases in the consumption of livestock products.
This has been driven by increases in population and disposable income and by
falls in the real relative price of livestock products.
In traditional societies, meat eating is reserved for ceremonial or festive
occasions and the bulk of both energy and protein nutrition is derived from
foodstuffs of vegetable origin. Such production of livestock as takes place
occurs on a non-commercial basis. Consumption of livestock products is largely
confined to intermediate products such as eggs or milk. The rural nature of
such societies, the inadequacy of a distribution system and the frequent
absence of electricity for essential refrigeration reinforce this.
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6 R.W. Dean
The area planted worldwide to wheat and coarse grains for the 2000/01
harvest was 514 million hectares; 3.1% less than it was 30 years ago. This
reflects diversion of land to other crops but it is also a by-product of the increas-
ing urbanization of the planet, including the transfer of farm land to industrial
activity and the abandonment of many small-scale farming enterprises; a
process which has not, especially in many developing countries, been accom-
panied by sufficient investment in mechanized agriculture.
Final production in 2000/01 is projected at 1.44 billion tonnes; 49%
greater than 30 years ago. This is due to increased yields per hectare, equiva-
lent over the past three decades to almost 1.5% a year. While this may appear
satisfactory, it is a matter for major concern that the rolling 5-year % increase
in cereal yields, as shown in Fig. 1.1, has been falling since the mid-to-late
1980s. There are a number of reasons for this, which are specific to different
regions of the world. In the developed world, the decline in the growth of
cereal yields per hectare is primarily due to policy measures designed to draw
down cereal stocks and to substitute direct payments to farmers for farm-price
support programmes. In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, eco-
nomic collapse and subsequent economic reforms further depressed already
low productivity. In developing countries, particularly in Asia, the slow-down
in cereal productivity growth has been a function partly of growing water
shortages and of inadequate public investment, notably in irrigation infrastruc-
ture. There is also, ominously, clear evidence of diminishing returns at work in
that ever-increasing use of fertilizers, water and other inputs are needed to sus-
tain yield gains.
14
12
10
Growth over 5 years (%)
12.9
6
9.7
8.3 8.7
4
6.2
2 4.6
0
1978/79 1983/84 1988/89 1993/94 1998/99 2001/02
Fig. 1.1. Five-year rolling yield increase for wheat and coarse grains.
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8 R.W. Dean
These factors are expected to slow growth in cereal yields worldwide from
1.6% a year in 19821997 to 1.0% a year in 19972020. This is a challenge
that we are going to have to address in the next 20 years or so.
For 30 years, we have relied upon increased yields to provide the world
with the wheat and other grains required to feed humans and livestock. It
needs to be borne in mind, as one distinguished progenitor of the Green
Revolution has pointed out, that observers have tended to focus overly on
high-yielding wheat and rice varieties as if they alone can produce the yield
improvements noted during the 1970s and 1980s. Certainly, modern plant
varieties can uplift yield curves owing to their more efficient plant architecture
and the incorporation of genetic sources of resistance to disease and insect
infestation. However, they can only achieve significantly improved yields over
traditional varieties if systematic changes in crop husbandry are made, such as
in planting dates and rates, fertilizer application, water management, and weed
and pest control. For example, higher soil fertility and greater moisture avail-
ability for growing food crops also raises the potential for the development of
weeds, pests and disease. Complementary improvements in weed, disease and
insect control are thus also required to achieve maximum benefit.
If the potential of the Green Revolution is becoming played out for whatever
reasons, we shall have to look to other means to provide world food and feed
requirements. The debate over transgenic crops is of clear relevance in this context.
The main engine driving the growth of demand for livestock feeds, and thus
feedstuffs use, worldwide in recent years has been the long expansion, during
the 1980s, of livestock product consumption in East Asia and, most notably, in
China. This is not to exclude the effects of increased demand for livestock
products in either the developed world or in Latin America and other emerg-
ing economies.
Between 1994 and 1999, the consumption of poultrymeat rose by 11 mil-
lion tonnes or by over 25%. Over half the additional consumption between
1994 and 1999 took place in Asia where consumption has risen by almost
50%.
These data are remarkable in that they include the period in which the
Asian economies were described, not without a degree of Western schaden-
freude, as in a state of economic meltdown. China is, of course, the dominant
economic entity of Asia. Consumption of poultrymeat in China grew by almost
5 million tonnes or over 70% in the 5-year period. If we look at growth in poul-
trymeat consumption over the period in question, it is evident that most of this
growth occurred in 19941996 before the regions economic difficulties of
1997. For example, Chinese poultrymeat consumption in 1995 grew by 25%,
and then fell progressively to 5% in 1998 and (forecast) 1999. Growth in the
region as a whole in 1995 was 18%; this fell progressively to 3% in 1998 and
was expected to be only 4% in 1999.
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Volume %
change Change
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 199499 199499
10 R.W. Dean
The extent to which feedstuffs production and usage in the developing world
increases will depend on competition for the available resources of land, labour
and capital. It is, for example, suggested that where land is the main constraint,
farmers may prefer to concentrate on high-value crops for fast-growing urban mar-
kets rather than on feedstuffs production. While production of livestock is expected
to increase in the developing world, it is questionable whether they will produce
requisite feedstuffs themselves or import them. Certainly, most recent studies sug-
gest a substantial net increase in developing countries net imports both of live-
stock products and feedstuffs during the first quarter of the 21st century.
The extent to which yield growth for most cereals has declined in recent
years is of concern because of the pressures being exerted on cultivable land.
Again, this stresses the combined effect of industrial encroachment and inade-
quate investment in infrastructure and irrigation.
CONSUMER POWER
19701980 Price
The 1970s were a disturbed period in post-war UK history. The UK joined the
EU in 1973 and this required a 5-year period of transition to higher EU farm
prices, including those for livestock products. The oil-shock of 1973 caused a
period of rapidly rising world commodity prices. In addition, this was a period
of considerable social unrest, epitomized by the 3-day week following the start
of the miners strike and the two General Elections of 1974; the first fought on
the basis of Who Governs Britain.
12 R.W. Dean
scientific evidence which has been used by organizations to create alarm which
has been enthusiastically taken up by the media. The Brent Spar oil platform
controversy pursued by Greenpeace was based on quite erroneous evidence as
to the amount of pollution that would ensue should the platform be sunk, as
originally intended, in deep Atlantic waters. Greenpeace subsequently apolo-
gized to Shell Oil for their misrepresentation of the facts a fact studiously
ignored by most of the media on the grounds that it is the height of political
incorrectness to attack Greenpeace but the damage was done.
The debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is, potentially,
much more critical not just to the feedstuffs industry but to science in general.
The GM controversy it cannot surely be called a debate initiated by the
publication of a letter supporting the cause of Dr Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett
Research Institute, whose work on the effects of GM potatoes, genetically modi-
fied to express a lectin originating in the snowdrop, on the gut of rats has
achieved a certain notoriety. Again, reputable bodies, including the Royal
Society, have questioned the scientific basis of this work. No matter. This hare
has been set running and the feed industry and the livestock industry must face
the unpalatable fact that further factors have entered the Research and
Development equation.
The first is the emergence into positions of prominence of organizations
whose belief in the moral rightness of their cause and it is a moral rightness
because no scientific consideration is involved is comparable with the self-
righteousness of a 17th-century Witchfinder-General or the Dominican-inspired
Inquisition. Governments are in the position, increasingly, of having to defer to
such organizations. Brussels immediate reaction, for example, to the dioxin
scandal was to announce plans to review the list of permitted ingredients and
the schedule of undesirable substances in feedstuffs. Since dioxins are not, as far
as the author is aware, a permitted ingredient in feedstuffs, this response seems
less than relevant. However, it leads to a much more significant general point.
Over the past decade, three controversies have afflicted the livestock indus-
try. These references do not include sporadic outbreaks of Salmonella, E. coli
0157, Campylobacter and Listeria.
For more than a decade, a debate has raged over hormone-based growth
promoters in beef production, largely as a result of a trade dispute with the
USA that permits the use of such substances. Most scientific evidence tends to
support the view that, properly used, such substances pose no danger to either
beef cattle or to human consumers of beef.
Bovine somatotrophin therapy in milk production has been licensed in the
USA. This is a biotechnology product that significantly increases milk produc-
tion. Welfare issues have been raised about its effect on dairy cows; the role of
IGF-1 on human health remains controversial.
The latest controversy over GM foods affects the feedstuffs industry in that
two important raw materials used by the feed industry, maize and soybeans,
are directly affected.
Setting aside, for the moment, the biotechnology-related aspects of bovine
somatotrophin and GM crops, these three areas of dispute are linked by one
common factor. The products are science-generated and the body of fact avail-
Poultry f_s - Chap 01 29/5/02 11:20 AM Page 13
able to us supports the argument for their use at the present time. This does not
mean that we should close the books on further evaluation. Increasingly com-
plex scientific and technical solutions to the problems of the livestock and feed-
stuffs industry will require increasingly complex review procedures. What is also
clear, however, is that a political input will also be required and that the feed-
stuffs industry, increasingly science-based, needs to improve the presentation of
its case. Whether this will be successful is questionable. One aspect of the
debate is, however, eminently arguable. It is said that We do not need these
GM crops. Whether this is so or not, it requires an answer to the question how
are we going to meet the demand for crops to satisfy both human food and
livestock feed demand?. It would be much easier for everyone concerned if
this were a purely agronomic question. Politics is, however, now firmly
entrenched in the debate and that is something that the livestock industry and
its feedstuffs suppliers will fail to address to its own profound disadvantage.
REFERENCES
Bouis, H. (1994) Changing food consumption patterns in Asia and prospects for
improvements in nutrition: Implications for Agricultural Production. Paper pre-
sented at a symposium sponsored by the Asian Productivity Organisation on
Changing Dietary Intake and Food Consumption.
Huang, J., Rosegrant, M.W. and Rozelle, S. (1995) Public Investment, Technological
Change and Reform: a Comprehensive Accounting of Chinese Agricultural Growth.
International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.
Pindstrup-Andersen (1992) Global perspectives for food production and consumption.
Tidsskrift for Land Okonomi 4, 145169.
Ritson, C. and Hutchins, R. (1991) The consumption revolution. In: Fifty Years of the
National Food Survey 19401990. HMSO, London.
Rosegrant, M.W., Agcaoili-Sombilla, M. and Perez, N.D. (1995) In: Global Food
Projections to 2020: Implications for Investment. International Food Policy
Research Institute, Washington, DC.
USDA FAS (2001) World Production, Consumption and Trade in Grain (October 2001
update).