MLBA 1: February / March 2008

The perfect storm: Meat production, grain consumption and the poultry industry

     Alltech Biotechnology, Asia Pacific

Will ethanol displace gasoline or simply take food off our and feed from our animals? That was the question posed by Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech, to delegates at a recent feed industry symposium. To all involved in the poultry industry, this very question takes on even greater significance and perhaps should sound a few alarm bells.

The competition for feed ingredients will become tighter. We had a glimpse of it as poultry industries around the world grappled with other animal industries, such as pork and aquaculture production, for the very same feed ingredients.

Meat consumption increases as annual per capita income increases. And that explains why feed production is high in Europe and North America.

For example, The Netherlands produces about 0.81 million tonnes of feed per million people, while China and India produce about 0.07 and 0.01 million tonnes, respectively.

Together, China and India account for over 2 billion of the world's population. So we see a significant imbalance in feed production in Asia, where an increase in per capita meat consumption is expected to rise years from now. China alone is predicted to increase from about 50kg per capita today to about 70kg by 2030.

Thinking about the animal feed required to meet such a huge increase in meat consumption can be sobering. The current feed produced globally is about 720 tonnes. An extra 320 tonnes would be required to produce the 20kg per capita of extra meat for China's 1.5 billion people in 2030.

Even if the largest producers of grains like Brazil, Argentina, the USA and Ukraine could double their production by then, there would still be insufficient feed available to deliver the extra meat to China, let alone other parts of Asia, in 2030.

The question then is "Where will this extra feed come from?" or, more accurately, "Where will the raw materials for these feeds come from?"

Ethanol production

Trying to wean itself from fossil fuel dependency, the US aims to produce 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2012. 

This has led to the construction of 111 dry mill ethanol plants with more than 80 still being built. All in all, they are expected to consume 60 million tonnes of grain a year.  And where will this grain come from?

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