Diet shifts towards meat and the effects on cereal use: can we feed the animals in 2030?

Abstract

The paper argues that current international projections of meat and feed demand may underestimate future consumption patterns, for mainly two reasons: demand projections are based on income extrapolation with an assumed demand elasticity and feed requirements per unit of meat are taken to be fixed. Instead, we propose a structural specification that includes a dietary shift towards meat as per capita income increases, and we account for a shift from traditional to cereal intensive feeding technologies. Our finding is that under the commonly assumed growth rates of per capita income, world cereal feed demand will be significantly higher in the coming 30 years than is currently projected by international organizations, even if we allow for price effects. Compared to other factors that are generally expected to affect the future world food situation, the quantitative impact of the increased cereal feed demand greatly exceeds that of GMOs and climate change in the coming three decades.