Impacts of feeding less food-competing feedstuffs to livestock on global food system sustainability.

ABSTRACT: Increasing efficiency in livestock production and reducing the share of animal products in human consumption are two strategies to curb the adverse environmental impacts of the livestock sector. Here, we explore the room for sustainable livestock production by modelling the impacts and constraints of a third strategy in which livestock feed components that compete with direct human food crop production are reduced. Thus, in the outmost scenario, animals are fed only from grassland and by-products from food production. We show that this strategy could provide sufficient food (equal amounts of human-digestible energy and a similar protein/calorie ratio as in the reference scenario for 2050) and reduce environmental impacts compared with the reference scenario (in the most extreme case of zer

SUBMITTER: Schader C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4707862 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature