New FAO report surveys how different livestock production systems can contribute to social, economic and environmental sustainability

Local conditions, and challenges, vary enormously for a sector providing a third of the world’s protein

Livestock production systems, including poultry, provide one-third of the world’s total protein supply and are undergoing profound changes

Rome – According to a new study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), livestock production systems provide one-third of the world’s total protein supply - most of it from mixed crop-livestock and poultry production systems - and are undergoing profound changes.

Feedlots and intensive production systems have important economic foundations, while the bulk of livestock’s role in food security is based on national and local marketing, with only 15 percent of meat, 12 percent of milk and dairy products and just three percent of eggs traded across international borders.

At the same time, the livestock sector is experiencing a dynamic transformation process that is expected to last for the next decades, with feed–food competition for land - within a context of stabilizing arable cropland expansion and deforestation - driving the trend  towards better use of agroindustrial by-products and other less conventional feed sources, as well grasslands and marginal lands, to increase terrestrial animal food source (TASF) supply.

The report, Contribution of the livestock sector to food security and sustainable agrifood systems – Benefits, constraints, synergies and trade offs is the third of a series prepared in response to a request from FAO Members for a comprehensive, science-based global assessment of the livestock sector’s contribution to food security, sustainable agrifood systems, nutrition and healthy diets, along with identification of key knowledge gaps.