Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T11:13:22.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Re-defining efficiency of feed use by livestock

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

J. M. Wilkinson
J. M. Wilkinson*
Affiliation:
School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington Campus, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE12 5RD, UK
*
†E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Livestock, particularly ruminants, can eat a wider range of biomass than humans. In the drive for greater efficiency, intensive systems of livestock production have evolved to compete with humans for high-energy crops such as cereals. Feeds consumed by livestock were analysed in terms of the quantities used and efficiency of conversion of grassland, human-edible (‘edible’) crops and crop by-products into milk, meat and eggs, using the United Kingdom as an example of a developed livestock industry. Some 42 million tonnes of forage dry matter were consumed from 2008 to 2009 by the UK ruminant livestock population of which 0.7 was grazed pasture and 0.3 million tonnes was conserved forage. In addition, almost 13 million tonnes of raw material concentrate feeds were used in the UK animal feed industry from 2008 to 2009 of which cereal grains comprised 5.3 and soyabean meal 1.9 million tonnes. The proportion of edible feed in typical UK concentrate formulations ranged from 0.36 for milk production to 0.75 for poultry meat production. Example systems of livestock production were used to calculate feed conversion ratios (FCR – feed input per unit of fresh product). FCR for concentrate feeds was lowest for milk at 0.27 and for the meat systems ranged from 2.3 for poultry meat to 8.8 for cereal beef. Differences in FCR between systems of meat production were smaller when efficiency was calculated on an edible input/output basis, where spring-calving/grass finishing upland suckler beef and lowland lamb production were more efficient than pig and poultry meat production. With the exception of milk and upland suckler beef, FCR for edible feed protein into edible animal protein were >1.0. Edible protein/animal protein FCR of 1.0 may be possible by replacing cereal grain and soyabean meal with cereal by-products in concentrate formulations. It is concluded that by accounting for the proportions of human-edible and inedible feeds used in typical livestock production systems, a more realistic estimate of efficiency can be made for comparisons between systems.

Keywords

livestockfeedsfeed conversionproducts
Type
Full Paper
Information
animal , Volume 5 , Issue 7 , 31 May 2011 , pp. 1014 - 1022
Copyright
Copyright © The Animal Consortium 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boyns, K 2009. Dairy. In Feeding Britain (ed. J Bridge and N Johnson), pp. 47–53. The Smith Institute, London, UK.Google Scholar
Bradford, GE 1999. Contributions of animal agriculture to meeting global human food demand. Livestock Production Science 59, 95–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cabinet Office 2008. Food matters. Towards a strategy for the 21st century. Cabinet Office, London, UK.Google Scholar
Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) 1999. Animal agriculture and global food supply. Task Force Report no. 135, July 1999. CAST, Ames, IA, USA.Google Scholar
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) 2009a. Agriculture in the United Kingdom, 2008. Retrieved September 30, 2009, from http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/foodfarm/general/auk/documents/AUK-2008.pdfGoogle Scholar
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) 2009b. December Survey of Agriculture (Stats 3/09), UK Results, 12 March 2009. Retrieved November 5, 2009, from http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/foodfarm/landuse/livestock/decsurvey/index.htmGoogle Scholar
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) 2009c. GB Animal Feed Statistical Notice, July 2009. Retrieved September 28, 2009, from http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/foodfarm/fod/animalfeed/index.htmGoogle Scholar
Food Standards Agency 2002. McCance and Widdowson's The Composition of Foods (6th Edition) Integrated Dataset (CoFIDS). Retrieved January 14, 2010, from http://www.food.gov.uk/science/dietarysurveys/dietsurveys/Google Scholar
Galloway, JN, Burke, M, Bradford, E, Naylor, R, Falcon, W, Chapagain, AK, Gaskell, JC, McCullough, E, Mooney, HA, Oleson, KLL, Steinfeld, H, Wassenaar, T, Smil, V 2007. International trade in meat: the tip of the pork chop. AMBIO 36, 622–629.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garnett, T 2009. Livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions: impacts and options for policy makers. Environmental Science and Policy 12, 491–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfray, HCJ, Beddington, JR, Crute, IR, Haddad, L, Lawrence, D, Muir, JF, Pretty, J, Robinson, S, Thomas, S, Toulmin, C 2010. Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science 327, 812–818.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Havenstein, GB, Ferket, PR, Qureshi, MA 2003a. Growth, liveability and feed conversion of 1957 versus 2001 broilers when fed representative 1957 and 2001 broiler diets. Poultry Science 82, 1500–1508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havenstein, GB, Ferket, PR, Qureshi, MA 2003b. Carcass composition and yield of 1957 versus 2001 broilers when fed representative 1957 and 2001 broiler diets. Poultry Science 82, 1509–1518.Google Scholar
Hazzeldine, M 2009. Nutritional and economic value of by-products from biofuel production. In Recent advances in animal nutrition 2008 (ed. PC Garnsworthy and J Wiseman), pp. 291–312. Nottingham University Press, Nottingham, UK.Google Scholar
Huazhu, Y, Baotong, H 1989. Introduction of Chinese integrated fish faming and some other models. In Integrated Fish Farming in China. NACA Technical Manual 7. A World Food Day Publication of the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 278pp. Retrieved October 4, 2009, from http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/ac264e/AC264E00.HTMGoogle Scholar
Jones, CR 1958. The essentials of the flour-milling process. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 17, 5–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pelletier, N, Pirog, R, Rasmussen, R 2010. Comparative life cycle environmental impacts of three beef production strategies in the Upper Midwestern United States. Agricultural Systems 103, 380–389.Google Scholar
Pelletier, N, Tyedmers, P, Sonesson, U, Scholz, A, Ziegler, F, Flysjo, A, Kruse, S, Cancino, B, Silverman, H 2009. Not all salmon are created equal: life cycle assessment (LCA) of global salmon farming systems. Environmental Science and Technology 43, 8730–8736.Google Scholar
Thomas, C (ed.) 2004. Feed into milk. A new applied feeding system for dairy cows. Nottingham University Press, Nottingham, UK.Google Scholar
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service 2009. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 22. Nutrient Data Laboratory Home Page. Retrieved January 14, 2010, from http://www.ars.usda.gov/ba/bhnrc/ndlGoogle Scholar
Valuation Office Agency 2009. Business Rating Manual vol. 5, Section 410 Flour and Provender Mills, Section 2.1 General description. Retrieved October 13, 2009, from http://www.voa.gov.uk/instructions/chapters/rating_manual/vol5/sect410/frame.htmGoogle Scholar
Williams, AG, Audsley, E, Sandars, DL 2006. Determining the environmental burdens and resource use in the production of agricultural and horticultural commodities. Main Report. DEFRA Research Project IS 0205. Cranfield University, Bedford, UK. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.silsoe.cranfield.ac.uk and http://www.defra.gov.ukGoogle Scholar