SPECIAL FEATURE: INTRODUCTION

Livestock and global change: Emerging issues

for sustainable food systems
Mario Herreroa,1 and Philip K. Thorntonb
a products and what the social and envi-
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, St. Lucia, QLD 4067,
ronmental consequences of these changes
Australia; and bCGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food
will be. In addition, the dynamics and
Security, International Livestock Research Institute, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya patterns of agricultural production and the
Edited by William C. Clark, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and accepted by the Editorial Board on November 21, functioning of ecosystems will be significantly
2013 (received for review November 20, 2013) affected by climate change and increases in
climate variability. Major changes can thus be
anticipated in livestock systems, although the
The global food system is experiencing pro- continue, is likely to be able to accommodate nature of these changes is not easy to foresee.
found changes as a result of anthropogenic these demand increases (5). Most recent pro- Livestock and livestock systems are substan-
pressures. The ever-increasing human popu- jections have important common features: tial users of natural resources; at the same
lation (more than 9 billion by 2050), together time, they contribute very significantly to the
with changes in consumption patterns (i.e., Local production under current yield trends
livelihoods of at least 1.3 billion poor people
increasing demand for livestock products) in many parts of the world, like Sub-
in rural households (10, 11). Recent global
caused by urbanization, increasing incomes, Saharan Africa (SSA) and parts of Asia, will assessments (1216) have considered par-
and nutritional and environmental concerns, not be able to meet local food demand. ticular elements of livestock and livestock
is shaping what we eat, who eats, and how Hence, increases in food trade are projected systems, but none addresses such systems
much, more than ever. The double burdens of to increase in the future in some parts of the and their considerable variations in a com-
nutrition (overconsumption and undernutri- world. This is a key aspect of balancing the prehensive, integrated way. This has led to
tion), together with the need to reduce the food supply and demand equation. inaccurate simplifications of the messages
impacts of climate change, are defining Although increases in the yields of crops surrounding how to manage the livestock
research agendas, affecting policies, and mod- and livestock have occurred in most re- sectors growth in the future. The lack of a
ifying conceptions about food in different systems perspective has also curtailed ex-
gions of the world (apart from SSA), projec-
ways around the world (1, 2) and have been plorations of more sustainable options for
tions show a variable increase in cropland
the topic of other recent Special Features in the sectors development. This needs to be
PNAS (3, 4). and grassland expansion to meet demand (7).
rectified. Global change will have highly
Against this background, the global food Animal numbers will increase. However, differentiated impacts on food, liveli-
system that will have to improve its resource monogastric production (pork and poultry) hoods, and ecosystem goods and services
use efficiency and environmental perfor- will grow at faster rates than ruminants from livestock systems around the world.
mance significantly to ensure the sus- (especially for meat and less so for milk). Opportunities may exist for some households
tainability of global food production and These factors lead to net increases in green- to take advantage of more improved range-
consumption. house gas emissions (GHGs) from the agricul- land and cropping conditions. In some of the
Livestock, the largest land use sector on tural and livestock sectors but a diminishing highland areas of SSA, for example, temper-
Earth, is an important part of this puzzle. trend in the emissions intensities across com- ature limitations on crop growth may be re-
Many solutions to the challenges of feeding modities (GHGs per unit of product). laxed in the coming decades due to gradual
the world sustainably lie in how we manage warming. These places may present small-
Projections of water use show increased
this sector. The demand for livestock prod- holders with new opportunities for income
pressure on total fresh water resources, nota-
ucts is projected to grow substantially in the generation. In contrast, other places may
bly on blue water (irrigation), and moderate see substantial reductions in agricultural po-
coming decades (5). This growth will be driven
by increasing populations, economic growth, increases in the efficiency of green water use tential, and these reductions may be drastic in
and rapid urbanization in many parts of the (8). Other studies have also demonstrated places. Human dietary preferences, along with
developing world. The main conclusions from large quantities of reactive nitrogen used many other factors, may change the current
such projections is that a shift to diets with and a potential disruption of phosphorus patterns of land use systems, but discussion of
more animal products and fats is likely to cycles in the future (9). the implications of those changes needs to be
happen, mostly in the developing world, as more sophisticated than popular generaliza-
In summary, food production can be tions about reducing meat consumption.
a result of increased incomes and urbaniza-
tion (6). Although the consumption per cap- attained under current productivity and de- Dealing with changes in livestock systems
ita of cereals is likely to stabilize, population mand trends but not necessarily in ways that needs to be informed by consideration of
growth will increase the total quantities of make progress in achieving environmental
both meat (almost doubling) and cereals goals or social goals. Author contributions: M.H. and P.K.T. wrote the paper.
(50%) needed to feed the world in 2050. There is significant uncertainty about both The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The supply response of the global agricul- how livestock systems might evolve to meet 1
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mario.
ture and livestock sectors, if current trends the increased the demand for livestock herrero@csiro.au.

2087820881 | PNAS | December 24, 2013 | vol. 110 | no. 52 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1321844111

 SPECIAL FEATURE:
INTRODUCTION
the benefits and problems they create. The and future impacts of livestock on the global suggests that exploiting the increasingly
benefits associated with livestock are societal, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles are studied decoupled interactions between crops and
economic, and environmental. Livestock con- by Bouwman et al. (9). Golub et al. (21) livestock could be beneficial for promoting
tribute 17% to the global food balance, in examine the impacts of GHG abatement structural changes in the livestock sector.
terms of calorific intake per person per day, policies on food security, land use, leakage Havlk et al. (32) demonstrated that exploiting
and 33% of the protein in human diets (10). impacts, and the evolution of the livestock yield gaps of crops could indirectly im-
They contribute substantially to the liveli- sector in both the developed world and the prove the efficiency of livestock production
hoods of (especially) the poor in the develop- developing world. Alkemade et al. (22) ex- by favoring the growth of more intensive
ing world. Livestock provide traction mainly plore the impacts of different growth tra- production systems with better quality animal
in irrigated, densely populated areas and al- jectories and agricultural intensification on feeding practices. Their results also show
low cropping in these places. They provide rangeland biodiversity. Perry et al. (23) pro- additional land sparing due to increased
nutrients, particularly in the mixed systems vide an account of drivers of livestock disease resource use efficiencies.
of SSA. They can promote biodiversity in- dynamics and suggest ways of reducing the
creases in some pastoral systems (17), and burden of diseases as the livestock sector Managing the Indirect Effects of
the rangelands could capture significant grows. These are all aspects that have received Livestock Systems Intensification Is
quantities of carbon (12). At the same time, little attention in assessments of the interac- Critical for the Sustainability of the
livestock and livestock systems can have neg- tions between livestock and the future trajec- Global Food System
ative effects locally and globally, as well as tories of change in the global food system. Much has been said recently about the po-
directly and indirectly. Locally, these include These papers reveal many issues at the tentially positive impacts of sustainably in-
land conversion and land degradation. heart of sustainability science and environ- tensifying global food systems, including
Twenty percent of the worlds pastures and mental and development policy. Some of the livestock sector (2, 34, 35). It is now
rangelands have been degraded to some ex- those most essential for managing the growth widely acknowledged that sustainable in-
tent through overgrazing, compaction, and of the livestock sector in the future are tensification goes beyond improving produc-
erosion caused by livestock action (18). The presented below. tivity and efficiency, and that it encompasses
livestock sector may be responsible for other aspects, such as creating the necessary
818% of GHGs, a significant share consid- Exploiting the Diversity of Livestock incentives and investments for systems to
ering their projected growth. A contraction Systems Is a Prerequisite for the intensify, developing regulations and limits
in meat consumption per person in high- Sustainable Growth of the Sector for intensifying systems (i.e., animal welfare
income countries would benefit human It has been widely demonstrated that dif- standards), and others. A large body of work
health, mainly by reducing the risk of heart ferent types of livestock systems, in diverse on livestock in this area has focused on im-
disease, obesity, and colorectal cancer (16, 19). agroecologies and regions and producing proving productivity and the impacts on
The benefits of livestock, the negative different kinds of animal products (e.g., meat, GHGs, emissions intensities, and their close
impacts they can have on the environment, milk, eggs), have widely differing resource link to land sparing, which leads to a reduction
and the effects of climate change on livestock use efficiencies (20, 2427). For example, the in CO2 emissions (32, 33, 36). The paper by
and livestock systems are all heavily differ- paper by Herrero et al. (20) shows that land Alkemade et al. (22) also shows that these
entiated spatially. These effects need to be put use and GHG intensities between beef, land-sparing effects could lead to reducing
into regional and local contexts both for milk, and monogastric production can differ the impacts of livestock on biodiversity.
designing suitable research agendas and for in specific cases by a factor of 10 or more. An additional positive impact, and simul-
engaging in environmental debates. Livestock This is in agreement with recent life cycle taneously a perverse incentive, is that these
are not bad everywhere, any more than they assessment estimates (24, 25) and with ear- increases in productivity and efficiency lead,
are unequivocally good in all developing lier, more aggregated studies (26, 27). The in many cases, to increased profitability and
country situations. These regional variations magnitude of the differences reveals a sig- cash flow in livestock farms. These could be
in public goods and bads need to be un- nificant potential for improvement (28, 29). major incentives in many parts of the world
derstood for the appropriate targeting of There is unequivocal evidence that technical to increase operation size (more animals,
technology and policy, whether they relate to improvements, like improving animal diets, more use of land, potentially more de-
contamination by manure of water resources often used as part of sustainable intensifi- forestation, and more diverted resources to-
from intensive production systems in Asia cation strategies, are likely to lead to increases ward livestock), whereas an essential premise
or to increasing market opportunities for in productivity and efficiency (and potentially to reduce environmental impacts of livestock
resource-poor livestock keepers in agropas- land sparing), with the effects being larger the production is to produce more with fewer
toral systems of SSA. lower the productivity is (2931). Diminish- but more productive animals (29). This is
This Special Feature is organized around ing or very small effects are observed at high certainly an aspect requiring regulation and
five papers that examine different facets of productivity levels. This partly explains why incentives to ensure that growth occurs
the future of livestock systems. The paper by the potential for increasing productivity within environmental bounds (21).
Herrero et al. (20) provides a high-resolution and efficiency in the developing world is far In the global quest for intensifying live-
baseline global dataset of livestocks main bio- larger than in the developed world. Struc- stock systems, an aspect often overlooked is
physical interactions, including biomass use, tural changes, like shifts in production sys- the impact of intensification on the evolution
production, excretion, and emissions by pro- tems from grazing to mixed crop/livestock of infectious and zoonotic diseases. The pa-
duction systems and livestock products. This systems (32) or changes in the types of per by Perry et al. (23) provides a discussion
information forms the basis on which to livestock products consumed (from red on how different types of diseases are likely
study environmental impacts, resource use to white meats), could also play a significant to evolve. Seeking to meet the demand for
efficiencies, and socioeconomic aspects of role in shaping the resource use footprint of livestock products through the additional
livestock product consumption. Past, present, livestock globally (33). Recent evidence also growth of monogastric systems (they are

Herrero and Thornton PNAS | December 24, 2013 | vol. 110 | no. 52 | 20879
already growing at rates higher than 3% per study, a combination of land-based carbon and on how will nutrition be affected. An-
year in many places) for the sake of maximizing taxes for annex 1 countries, together with an swers to all these questions need significant
the efficiency of livestock production presents incentive for forest carbon sequestration in regional, sex, and income differentiation.
significant disease challenges. Potential prob- non-annex 1 countries, yielded large miti- Another area that merits more attention is
lems include increased risk and severity of gation impacts with little leakage. Additional adaptation to climate change. There are still
outbreaks of influenza and other zoonotic dis- abatement was obtained by adding a sub- large gaps in knowledge of the impacts of
eases, and increased likelihood of new patho- sidized GHG tax in non-annex 1 countries. climate change on livestock systems, on
gens developing if proper disease surveillance These practices led to the highest mitigation livestock productivity, on feeds and range-
methods and appropriate regulations and potentials and differential income effects lands, and on mitigation potentials, particu-
policies for managing animal densities and in different parts of the world, with non- larly in the tropics and subtropics (37). These
their location, for example, are not well annex 1 countries increasing incomes, mainly have still not been comprehensively studied,
designed, especially in the developing world. for agricultural households, without largely nor have the necessary incremental or trans-
The paper by Bouwman et al. (9) also affecting food security. There is an urgent formational changes required to adapt these
shows that the continuous intensification of need to develop and test these and similar systems to counteract these impacts in the
livestock systems has led to a large appro- mechanisms to ensure livestock systems con- future been identified. Appropriate adap-
priation and control of nutrient cycles by the tribute to the sustainability of the food system. tation measures in different places will
livestock sector, which, in turn, has led to depend in part on how livestock systems
significant recycling and disruptions in the What Is Next for the Global Integrated
develop into the future. There is much still to
global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Assessment of Livestock Systems?
learn about the potential impacts of different
These examples clearly illustrate why the The study of sustainable livestock futures pathways of economic development on food
sustainable in sustainable intensification needs the recognition that the livestock sector system outcomes and how these may affect
matters, and why it merits significantly more cannot be studied in isolation. Developing the livestock sector.
research. Diversity in livestock systems is a trends and alternative growth scenarios of Integrated assessments to date have tended
necessity for meeting environmental objec- how the sector might accommodate the in- to be preoccupied with global change over
tives and for managing risks, and there is a creases in livestock product demand need an the long term (38). More comprehensive ap-
case to be made for not maximizing pro- integrated approach. At the same time, most proaches for evaluating impacts and assess-
duction efficiency at all costs and everywhere. concerned with the evolution of the global ing alternatives that take on board changes
food system need to accept that the livestock in climate variability and climate extremes
Mechanisms for Effecting Behavioral sector needs a sophisticated treatment in are urgently needed. Much is already known
Change in Livestock Systems Need to Be future assessments due to its connectedness about the impacts of climate variability and
Better Understood to other food and economic systems. climate extremes on food systems, but there
Change is often mediated by incentives and From our perspective, the research topics
are undeniable challenges in setting in place
rewards or by regulations, taxes, and sub- presented in this Special Feature advance
adequate and appropriate monitoring systems
sidies. In livestock systems, the large differ- our understanding of livestock systems.
as well as in dealing with our current, some-
ences between the needs of developed and However, still needed is additional research
what limited ability to quantify changes in
developing countries require that sophisti- on these topics and integration of the re-
climate variability and extremes over short
cated differentiated mechanisms be designed. sults in frameworks for the study of global
temporal and high spatial scales. These chal-
Such mechanisms are needed for promoting food systems.
lenges affect all sectors, not just livestock, but
changes in livestock product consumption, Additionally, we feel that the following
improved understanding of the full range of
for managing structural change, for im- livestock-related areas have not received
both long- and short-term impacts of global
proving farmers livelihoods, for reducing enough attention in global integrated assess-
change on food systems is critical for being
transaction costs, for promoting increased ment of food systems.
able to address the challenges effectively.
resource use efficiency in the sector, and for Most attention has focused on the envi-
The livestock sector, the largest land user
managing pollution from livestock systems. ronmental impacts of livestock systems. This
on Earth, holds a large stake in how to ach-
These mechanisms have been implemented was a good starting point because most
ieve the balance between food production,
in the livestock sector with different degrees integrated assessment frameworks require
livelihoods, and environmental objectives.
of success, but it is essential that new alter- adequate knowledge of the main interactions
It is essential that we continue researching
natives be developed. Change and adoption between livestock and natural resources.
it with the urgency, consistency, and rigor
of improved practices and new production However, social and economic impacts have
that it merits to ensure its contribution to
systems are not occurring at a fast enough not received enough attention in these as-
sessments, although they are crucial for the sustainability of global food systems in
pace for promoting economic growth, im-
building convincing cases for change in the the future.
proved livelihoods, food security, and envi-
ronmental protection simultaneously. livestock sector. For example, two areas that ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We would like to thank the
Golub et al. (21) demonstrate how differ- have received significant attention recently, authors of all the papers that contributed to this Special
ent policy mechanisms can have impacts on land sparing as a mitigation option and re- Feature. Additionally, we are grateful to the anonymous
reviewers of the manuscripts. The CGIAR Research Pro-
the mitigation of GHGs from livestock sys- ducing livestock product consumption, can- gramme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
tems. They show that different methods can not be studied properly unless something can is funded by the CGIAR Fund, the Australian Department of
Foreign Aid and Trade, Danish International Development
be effective on their own but, more in- be said about impacts on people and product Agency, Environment Canada, Instituto de Investigao
terestingly, demonstrate that implementing value chains, on the economic contribution Cientfica Tropical, Irish Aid, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign
combinations of incentives and taxes simul- of the sector, on which sectors are going to Affairs, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation,
Government of Russia, UK Aid, and the European Union,
taneously in different parts of the world may absorb the idle producers, on what will be with technical support from the International Fund for
have the greatest mitigation impacts. In their the opportunity costs of other alternatives, Agricultural Development.

20880 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1321844111 Herrero and Thornton

 SPECIAL FEATURE:
INTRODUCTION
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