Kebreab Ermias - Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production : 4th International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition Sacramento, California, USA 9-12 September

Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production : 4th International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition Sacramento, California, USA 9-12 September — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production : 4th International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition Sacramento, California, USA 9-12 September" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...226

Part 1
Keynotes

James W. Oltjen , Ermias Kebreab and Hlne Lapierre (eds.) Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production 4th International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition Sacramento, California, USA 9-12 September 2013 10.3920/978-90-8686-781-3_1

Wageningen Academic Publishers The Netherlands 2013

Feeding the planet: key challenges

M. Herrero 1

(1)

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, 4067, QLD, Australia

M. Herrero

Email:

Abstract

The notion of feeding 9 billion people sustainably in the next forty years presents considerable challenges. Population growth and human dietary changes remain the key drivers of the large increases in future food demand. While the world food system can respond to meet this demand, there are challenges to ensure this happens sustainably, equitably and within our conceived limits of a safe environmental space. This paper discusses the key trends in food production and consumption, and the key challenges for feeding the planet. Especial attention is given to livestock, a key part of the puzzle for ensuring sustainable nutritional security and environmental sustainability for future generations.

Introduction

The global food system is experiencing profound changes as a result of anthropogenic pressures. The ever-increasing human population (to reach 9 billion by 2050) together with changes in consumption patterns (i.e. increasing demand for livestock products) caused by urbanization, increasing incomes, and nutritional and environmental concerns, are shaping what we eat, who eats, and how much, more than ever. The double burden of nutrition (overconsumption and under-nutrition) is defining research agendas, policies and conceptions about food in different ways around the world.

Against this background is a global food system that will have to improve its resource use efficiency and environmental performance significantly in order to ensure the sustainability of global food production and consumption within established planetary boundaries of greenhouse gas emissions, and water and nutrient use amongst others.

Livestock, the largest land use sector on Earth is an important part of this puzzle and many solutions to the challenges facing how to feed the world sustainably lie in how we manage this sector. This brief paper aims to discuss some of the key ways in which we could increase the sustainability of the world food system, and some of the challenges to overcome.

Key challenges: the future demand for food

Table ), is that a shift to diets with more animal products and fats, is likely to happen, mostly in the developing world as a result of increased incomes and urbanization. While the consumption per capita of cereals is likely to stabilize, population growth will increase the total quantities of both meat (almost doubling) and cereals (50%) needed to feed the world in 2050.

Table 1

Projections of global demand for food to 2050 (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, ).

	2005/2007	2050
Population (millions)	6,584	9,306
Cereals for food (kg per capita)
Cereals for all uses (kg per capita)
Meat consumption (kg per capita)	38.7	49.4
Oil crops for food (kg per capita)	12.1	16.2
Oil crops for all uses (kg per capita)	21.9	30.5
Meat production (million tonnes)
Cereal yields, rice paddy (t/ha)	3.32	4.30
Arable land area (million ha)	1,592	1,661

The supply response of the global agriculture and livestock sectors is likely to be able to accommodate these demand increases (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, ). Hence, food production can be attained under current productivity and demand trends, but not necessarily making inroads in the improvement of our environmental goals.

Several authors (Foley et al ., ) have suggested different mechanisms for improving the sustainability of the world food system. The three most often mentioned are:

Increasing productivity (managing the supply side): Increasing agricultural productivity and overall food production have been the pillar for designing strategies for feeding the world since the industrial revolution. Notable gains have been made in many parts of the world (developed countries and Latin America and Asia). There is significant ongoing research on how to sustainably intensify global food production, how to bridge yield gaps of crops and livestock and how to improve value chains so that both producers and consumers benefit from potential yield increases, while using less, the same, or slightly more inputs.

Reducing waste in food value chains. This subject has received attention recently (Godfray et al ., ) shows that in the developing world these losses occur mostly due to post-harvest activities like deficient harvesting and storage methods, pests, export regulations and others. In the developed world this occurs mostly at the post-consumption stage, due to poor management of product sell-out dates in the value chain and direct food disposal by consumers (i.e. discarding food from fridges).

Consuming more sustainable diets (managing the demand for food): There is evidence that modifying what we eat could have significant impacts on the use of resources like land and water, it could reduce GHG emissions and it could have important health and nutritional benefits. A lot of emphasis has been put in the potential benefits of reducing red meat consumption and the promotion of healthy diets (Stehfest et al ., ). These studies have shown that reductions in livestock consumption could lead to reduced land use change, directly from less land clearing for raising animals or for producing feed crops. These land sparing gains, in turn lead to lower GHG emissions in general.

Figure 1

Make up of total food waste in developed and developing countries (Godfray et al ., ).

Table 2

Land use emissions in 2000 and 2050 for the reference scenario and four variants of dietary composition (Stehfest et al., ).

	GtCeq
2000	3.0
2000 reference	3.3
2050 no red meat	1.7
2050 no meat	1.5
2050 no animal products	1.1
2050 healthy diet	2.1

This is a significant finding. However, this space has not been explored sufficiently to provide suitable, practical, regional/country guidance for consumers and for policy makers to effect the necessary changes in local food systems, and to modify consumer behavior. At the global level, this concept has only been studied superficially, and without considering important dimensions such as dietary diversity and cultural preferences extending beyond measures of kilocalorie consumption, and what would be the social and economic impacts of reducing the size of the livestock sector. These additional dimensions are essential for understanding the biological and socio-economic implications of diet sustainability on the global food system. We need to go beyond simplistic recommendations like stop eating meat to make this area of research useful, and provide alternatives and practical guidelines for achieving these kinds of gains. This is of particular importance for the developing world, where livestock product demand projections demonstrate that even with significant consumption growth, consumption per capita will remain significantly lower than in the developed world (IAASTD, ).

Next page

1234567...226

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production : 4th International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition Sacramento, California, USA 9-12 September»

Look at similar books to Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production : 4th International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition Sacramento, California, USA 9-12 September. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

ANIMAL PLANET

Wild Animals

ANIMAL PLANET

Farm Animals

Nicole Stawicki

The Protein Pacing Diet: The Scientific Breakthrough for Boosting Metabolism, Losing Fat and Gaining Lean Muscle

Sonia S. Waisman

Animal Law in a Nutshell

Guoyao Wu

Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition and Metabolism

Heidi Hall (editor)

Insects as Animal Feed: Novel Ingredients for Use in Pet, Aquaculture and Livestock Diets

Nabors

The Plant-Based Vegan Diet for Bodybuilding Athletes (NEW VERSION): Healthy Muscle, Vitality, High Protein, and Energy for the Rest of your Life

Freston Kathy

Clean protein: the revolution that will reshape your body, boost your energy--and save our planet

Waldau

Animal Rights

Peter Robert Cheeke

Comparative Animal Nutrition and Metabolism

Joy Mench

Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare: Science and Practice

Herbert W. Ockerman

Animal By-Product Processing & Utilization

Discussion, reviews of the book Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition in sustainable animal production : 4th International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition Sacramento, California, USA 9-12 September and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.