Abstract:
201 Ruminations on future animal agriculture R.A. Leng P.O. Box 361, Coolum Beach Qld 4573 Summary Major changes worldwide suggest that Australian agriculture has a major economic role to play in supplying food to meet the worlds needs. We should anticipate there will shortly be increasing demand for our primary products which will contribute significantly to Australias wealth. The reasons for this prediction include: World population pressures An increasing awareness in the developed world of the pollution of land, air and water, necessitating a downturn in fuel, fertilizer and chemical use, particularly in Europe and North America Increasing demands for changes to improve animal welfare and for reductions in pollution associated with intensive animal production Reemphasis on production from the foragefed ruminant resulting from a decreasing availability of feed grains A widening of pollution awareness to include carbon dioxide and mineral nutrients (fertilizers and manures), and radioactive or chemical residues entering food chains, particularly in Europe and North America, leading these countries to import clean meat land when drought persists to avoid erosion and land degradation. A potential problem is alkaloidproducing endophyte fungi in our pasture grasses. Introduction Since vacating the Chair of Nutritional Biochemistry at this University in 1996, I have had many opportunities to travel both within and outside Australia and to interact with people in rural situations and this has brought home to me the deterioration in living conditions outside the major population areas. I believe that there are, for many reasons, increasing problems of food production in the world, and that there will be a huge problem providing animal protein to meet the global needs of both affluent and poor people. Enormous pressure has been placed on global land resources to support the burgeoning world population. The rich of the world appreciate clean and green foods and the poor need balanced diets; both cases will benefit from meat in the diet. Economic rationalism has been used to suggest that the meat (protein supply) for the world will come from intensification of animal production, which very often means feeding grain. This brings with it direct and indirect pollution, issues of perceived animal cruelty and reduced employment opportunities, particularly in the developing countries. I am increasingly convinced that there is an increasing need for the grass fed ruminant as a major source of dietary protein. This, for me, emphasizes Australia as a major world trader in ruminant products and suggests a major reemergence of ruminant grazing systems as a wealth generating strategy. Australia should be gearing up its infrastructure to support and encourage primary production, particularly meat and grain production. The need is to refine and emphasize our agricultural and natural resource education at all levels from technical (e.g. TAFE) teaching of farmers through to tertiary education if we are to be in a position to take full advantage of our natural advantages in primary production in Australia. I still detect that there is Because of a potential world shortage of grain, increased meat will necessarily be produced by ruminant animals from our cheapest food energy resource which is cellulosic biomass. Australias ability to meet a demand for clean and green meat with good eating qualities stands out as our strongest advantage and such products will attract premium prices. Predictable production from grazing animals will be essential. This will require a sustainable land policy, with supplementation of the grazing animal when the vagaries of weather cause a downturn in production in conjunction with a recognition of the need to destock Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition in Australia, Volume 12 (1999) 202 Leng, R.A. reluctance to support agriculture. The University of New England is positioned to participate in this exciting future and should emphasize and promote the agricultural and landbased sciences. Changes in food production Australia alone of all the continents has by far the largest relatively undisturbed (in geological terms) landmass. The mountain ranges appear to have been formed some 80 million years ago and because of the enormous depth of the continental crust, soils have not been replenished by volcanic action or the huge rifts caused by continental drift. In addition, Australia has not experienced general glaciations in the numerous ice ages. As a result, the majority of Australia has soils that are skeletal in nature, heavily leached, and the least fertile of any continent. These infertile soils are rapidly being eroded as agriculture and grazing take their toll. In his book The Future Eaters Flannery (1994) has pointed out that there are only a few areas, particularly in our North Eastern seaboard, where more fertile soil developed, possibly through erosion of volcanic areas, and these support our most intensive crop and animal production. Any strategy that sets out to address efficient longterm animal production in Australia has to recognize the need for more sustainable practices than has occurred in the past, particularly because of the old nature of this land mass. In most countries, increases in ruminant livestock production have been at the expense of detrimental effects on the soil through overgrazing, or reliance on energydense feeds such as cereal grains. This form of production promotes degradation in its widest sense, since land used to produce grain is at greater risk of erosion because of soil disturbance than land under pasture. The world is already overpopulated, with 800 million people thought to be under threat of starvation. There is little doubt that the predicted large increases in the human population, presently about 6 billion and projected to be close to 9 billion by 2050 (United Nations 1998), will have dire environmental consequences, and will further devalue the quality of life for deprived peoples of the world through slow starvation. The increased food demand will also see depletion of natural marine and land ecosystems. Over the last 30 years in the developed world there have been great changes in agriculture. Mans ability to exploit land and also marine systems for food production has been forever increasing. In the 1970s considerable concern was voiced by ecologists that the world was about to face mass starvation as we soaked up the energy resources (fossil fuels) and brought more and more land into production to provide food for an increasing population. Land was also brought into production to offset land going out of production through pollution and population pressures requiring land for settlements and interconnecting roads. Just as world food supplies appeared to be in danger of falling behind population increase, scientific ingenuity found ways to double, triple and quadruple production from the same land areas. The development of high yielding cereal varieties and the use of chemicals and fertilizers to support their monoculture allowed many of the developing countries to keep pace with demand, and in the industrialized countries allowed increased production of cereals. This was especially dollareffective as many of these countries were highly mechanised, had large land masses, had access to inexpensive (often subsidized) fertilizers and herbicides and were subsidised by an expanding manufacturing sector. European countries in particular had a food security sensitivity that was a legacy of food scarcities in two world wars. Over the last 40 years, the material aspirations of people have increased, particularly in the industrialized countries. The increased earning capacity of people was followed by increased demand for quality food and for commodities regarded as luxuries only a few years earlier. An unprecedented requirement for meat and fibre saw Australia at the forefront in producing these in a world where many developing countries barely kept pace with the demand for food, shelter and clothing. The impact of surplus world grain Australian farmers, geared to the export of animal products were able to expand production and Australia has been, and in 1999 continues to be, a major exporter of meat, dairy products and wool. However, improved varieties and management of cereal crops have produced far more grain than the world could adequately distribute. The number of people on the bread line, remains high while the preponderance of inexpensive cereal grains has allowed the pig and poultry industries to prosper. Inexpensive grain has also been directly responsible for the development of ruminant feedlotting, predominantly in the USA. This era that has seen the feeding of large amounts of grain directly to animals will be seen in the future as extremely wasteful, as well as costly in terms of soil erosion, fossil fuel consumption at every stage of productionploughing, planting, herbicides and insecticide manufacture and application, irrigation where it is applied, and storage and transport (see Leng 1995). Though poultry now require about 2 kg of grain, fortified with protein and minerals, to produce 1 kg of liveweight and pigs need 3 kg for 1 kg liveweight, ruminants require 612 kg grain per unit of liveweight gain. The cost of soil erosion should be added to any balance sheet that attempts to record the real economic cost of meat production. The loss of topsoil from cropping lands by all forms of erosion varies from 20 to 40 tonnes per hectare annually, and soil formation is thought to average about 1 tonne/ha annually. Soil erosion rates are highest in the more arid cropping areas. Poorly managed sloping terraces under crops, or Ruminations on future animal agriculture 203 overgrazed and degraded grasslands can lose up to 100 tonnes/ha per year. Wellmanaged pasture lands, on the other hand, lose annually 7 tonnes of soil per hectare or less, and wellmanaged forest lands lose negligible soil by erosion (Pimental et al. 1995). The surplus world grain, much of which is being used to feed animals, has been produced at an enormous cost of soil and fossil fuel, and in the near future the production of grain other than for human consumption will need to be restricted. World grain supplies and their future utilization The average annual production of cereal grains in the world is about 2000 million tonnes (USDA 1999) of which about 600 million tonnes (30%) is used in feed concentrates by livestock (Figure 1). The global use of concentrate feed resources in animal production is shown in Figure 2. If people continue to consume cereals at the same rate, but population increases by 50% by 2050 then the world will need to increase cereal grain production by 700 million tonnes, even if the the use of feed for animals remains unchanged. However, as peoples incomes and expectations increase, their dietary choices change towards higher intakes of quality cereals and also meat (see Figure 3), so that the need for animal products increases disproportionately as population increases and there are more affluent people in society. The increases in population of people who will increasingly demand animal protein (and ruminant meat) in their diets, are expected to be greatest in Africa and Asia and particularly in China (see Figure 4). Thus, if the present trend continues and more intensification of pig and poultry production also occurs, as it is (Figure 5) in developing countries, then the need for cereals for animal feed will increase faster than that for humans. This could mean that the projected population growth to 2050 may increase grain requirements for human consumption to 2000 million tonnes and the requirements for grain for animal feed purposes to a similar figure. Unless yields per hectare can be further increased, the area of cropping land that would be needed for grain production would increase from 1.4 billion hectares to almost 4 billion hectares. An increase of this magnitude for cereal grain production is probably not achievable let alone the massive additional needs for oil crop production. Over the past 2030 years low market prices of cereals have given an edge to intensive livestock production. Some estimates of subsidies paid have been greater than 30% of the costs of production in countries such as Europe, Canada and the USA. The impact of many issues is now resulting in a more rational application of subsidies, and import tariffs have been reduced. For example, Canada recently abolished grain freight subsidies; China, however, has attempted to increase grain production by subsidizing grain producers. The anticipated increase in grain requirements by China will dominate the movement of feed grains (LesterBrown 1994), and China may soak up any world surplus. Oils eed byproducts 150 Roots and tubers 150 Brans 100 Cereals 600 Figure 2 Global use of feeds for animals (in millions of tonnes) (after Hendy et al. 1995). Poultry 32% Cattle 32% Pigs 32% 32% Small Ruminants 4% Figure 1 Percentage of feed concentrates used by different classes of animal (after Hendy et al. 1995). Figure 3 Trends in consumption of meat, wheat and rice and coarse grains against economic status (Marks and Yetley 1987). may increase fourfold. 204 Leng, R.A. Free trade agreements and deregulation of grain prices are expected to lead to a world scarcity of feed grains and generally higher world market prices. Economic policies and subsidies promoting use of cereals for livestock production are to be phased out in the European community and USA. As grain prices rise substantially, a downturn and eventual cessation of the grainbased ruminant feedlotting systems can be expected as these are the least efficient converters of grain to meat. A much slower decline in the pig and poultry industries should follow. As ruminant industries return to feeding systems based on forage and crop residue and agroindustrial byproducts there will be scope to increase production with modern feeding technologies. Over a much longer time frame, we can expect the pig and then poultry industries to move to a reduced dependency on grain and eventually to move to systems based on sugar from cane, which can produce much greater quantities of energy for smaller inputs of fuel (Preston and Leng 1994). The balance of meats in the market place will also change as the costs of grain in animal feeds increase and are passed to the meat consumer. Meats from grazing animals should be more reasonably priced than those produced in industrial scale systems based on concentrate feeds, particularly where the costs of pollution control are included. If average meat consumption per capita doubles, and many nonmeat eaters begin to consume meat because they can afford to do so, then the demand for meat protein may increase fourfold. Industrial animal production: pollution concerns Large intensive animal production systems generate large volumes of wastes, high animal health risks, some risk to humans from zoonoses, as demonstrated by the recent outbreak of Nipah virus in Malaysia, and a need for greater consideration of animal welfare by farmers. Once these enterprises have to absorb the costs of environmental pollution (land, water, air) feedresulting from the accumulation of large amounts of nutrients in one place, they will be less viable (see Leng 1995). The potential impact of animal welfare concerns The growing concerns about the mistreatment of animals under production systems (see Singer 1990), although often misunderstood and misrepresented, will have a powerful effect on the future of industrial scale animal production. The move to freerange pig breeding has already started in Europe, at least partly in response to the revulsion of the largely urban population against factory farming. The recent push by the RSPCA for barn egg production and the dismantling of the intensive egg production systems must lead to more expensive eggs and poultry meats. Animal welfare groups around the world can be expected eventually to focus on closing down ruminant feedlots. Figure 4 The increase in consumption of beef in China between 1975 and 1996 (Source: Asian Agribusiness Group 1997). Figure 5 Changes in population sizes of farm animals, arable land and farm pastures between 1961 and 1990 (Sansoucy and Auriol 1986). Ruminations on future animal agriculture 205 Impact of human population increase Population is almost static in the developed countries, so the increases will occur mainly in Asia and Africa. Widespread famine from overpopulation in these regions was predicted in the 1970s by a number of scientists, particularly as the world population headed towards 6 billion. These predictions have been realised in some regions. The most notable famines have occurred in Ethiopia, North Korea and the Sudan, but these have had primarily political causes and famines have not been as widespread as predicted. However, because predictions have only partly become true, people are complacent. Science has been able to increase food production in line with population growth and threats of future famines are seldom taken seriously. World famines have in the main been prevented by greater than anticipated reserves of fuels, the ingenuity of plant geneticists who have been able to improve grain yielding varieties, intensification of fertilizer use, rationalization of land use, and more efficient use of water for irrigation. Most industrialized countries have subsidized grain production for their own food security, whereas the developing countries have struggled to produce sufficient to meet their own requirements. In 1994 the surplus of grain produced largely by industrialised countries was about 120 million tonnes (see Mitchell and Ingco 1994). Irrespective of the country, as people become environmentally aware they will become opposed politically to farming practices that are environmentally unfriendly. They will also oppose industries that they have to subsidise and which lead to surpluses that are then dumped overseas. This must affect particularly those industries involved in producing surplus grain to support environmentally unfriendly animal production systems that are increasingly unwelcome on animal welfare grounds. There will be support for more sustainable cereal production systems that are at lower risk for the environment but possibly lower yielding. Asia and SouthEast Asia are likely to increase grain imports for both human and animal production. It appears that the immediate response of small farmers (the majority of farmers) to the recent economic down turn has been to reduce inputs from offfarm sources. Thus, the use of fertilizer, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides declines, with serious implications for grain production in Asia. The high yielding varieties of cereals have a narrow gene base and their continued use depends on disease mitigation, ready availability of fertilizers and swift action of plant geneticists to rapidly produce varieties resistant to particularly fungal, but also bacterial and insect parasites, as these organisms become resistant to current control measures. At the extreme, there will be less protection of plants in Asia over the next few years and plant breeders may not make timely introductions of new resistant genotypes. Future increments in grain production The industrialized countries of the Northern Hemisphere are coming under pressure to reduce their inputs into agriculture in response to the need to reduce environmental pollution. Intensive agriculture in Europe has created water pollution problems by overuse of fertilizers and inappropriate disposal of manure. In Denmark, high nitrate levels in drinking water may even be life threatening and overuse of insecticides and herbicides has contaminated ground water in England to the extent that it is necessary to treat municipal water supplies with ozone before distribution. Mechanization of farming or economic rationalization of agriculture the get big or get out syndromehas been instrumental in widescale degradation of habitat for many creatures. In England, the ripping out of hedgerows has led to a massive loss of bird life and animal diversity, arguably made worse by insecticidal and herbicidal poisoning. Public pressure has been such that this is no longer permitted. Europe and the former Soviet block countries have probably done most damage to their environments. The outcome is that, once people become aware of environmental damage, there are strong movements to counteract adverse practices, particularly those associated with export industries. Nuclear power and food production The use of nuclear power for electricity generation also poses problems for future safe food production. This is particularly so in Europe, where there is a huge concentration of nuclear power stations, particulalry in France where new stations are still being built (see Figure 6). Contamination of the food chain with radioactive nucleides could be the single most significant catastrophe in Europe, perhaps necessitating the import of food from clean countries such as Australia. Radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 was widespread, affecting food produced in large areas of Europe. The Soviet authorities estimated that between 30 and 50 x 106 Curies of radioactive substances escaped. Although this was only a small proportion of the total radioactivity in the core, highly volatile substances such as Iodine131, Caesium134 and Caesium137 escaped, and krypton and xenon gases escaped in their entirety. The radioactive plume reached an altitude of 1500 m and spread over Eastern Europe and Scandinavia causing massive losses in agricultural production estimated in the UK to be $US15 million, in Sweden $US145 and in West Germany $US240 million. 206 Leng, R.A. An analysis made shortly after the Chernobyl incident put the potential losses that would have resulted from a similar explosion in a more densely populated country at more than $US300,000 million. The cost of clearing the debris following the melt down on Three Mile Island was estimated to be $US1,000 million (Bunyard 1988). Although the pressure of public opinion has stopped a number of nuclear power stations from being completed in Europe, the number is still high (see Figure 6). More are planned by the newly emerging exSoviet Union countries. Although the people of Vienna recently decided in a referendum not to complete a nearly operational reactor in Vienna, a few kilometers across the Danube, Chernobyltype nuclear reactors are being actively promoted. Two more Chernobyl plants are now planned for Russia. France has insisted that nuclear power is the only means of meeting its energy needs. The concentration of nuclear power plants is higher in Europe than elsewhere and the chance of a meltdown is therefore higher than in other regions. Because of the likely size of a contaminated area from a meltdown together with the intensive farming systems in Europe, the effects on availability of clean food would be enormous. The mathematical probability of nuclear reactor accidents has often been calculated as being so low as to be not worthy of serious consideration. In 1957 the US Brookhaven National Laboratory put the probability of the most serious accident occurring in a nuclear power plant at less than one in every million to 1,000 million years of reactor operation. Yet a number of serious accidents have already occurred, viz. at Kyshtym in the USSR (1957), at Windscale in the UK (1957), Three Mile Island in the USA (1979), and in Chernobyl (1986). History contradicts the mathematical predictions and, since Chernobyl, few people accept that nuclear power stations are sufficiently safe to be not worth worrying about. The editor of Nature at the time of Chernobyl wrote: The important question is not so much how accidents like this can be prevented, but how we can live with them safely. Murphys law applies: What can go wrong will go wrong. Part of the issue of living safely with nuclear power stations will be the problem of limiting the radioactive nucleides that enter the food chain. The level of land and food contamination from the events at Chernobyl will never be known. After Chernobyl, the acceptable levels of radioactivity in food had to be raised. Another such disaster could do great damage to the animal industries in Europe and the rich would then prefer to Figure 6 Concentrations of nuclear installations throughout Europe and adjacent countries. Ruminations on future animal agriculture 207 buy animal products from clean areas. Curiously, I cannot find any accounts of contaminated pig and poultry meats; presumably contaminated feeds were avoided by the feed compounding industry which could draw supplies from outside the fallout areas. In 1998 (12 years after Chernobyl) inspection of foods entering the UK from continental Europe includes radioactive monitoring, and recently radioactive mushrooms from Poland were rejected. A major nuclear accident in Europe or the USA could lead to serious food shortages in those countries, firstly, because of the reluctance of its population to consume contaminated foods and, secondly because of the reluctance of other countries to import their goods. After Chernobyl there was outrage in both India and Bangladesh when radioactivity was detected in milk and milk powder sent as food aid, even though the levels were insignificant. What are the chances of a nuclear accident at the level where food production and distribution would be affected? This depends on what you read or where you seek your information. History indicates four major catastrophes have occurred in 30 years. How much radioactivity can be leaked at low levels before food is also contaminated? As with the scare associated with BSE in cattle, it will not take much to generate consumer resistance amongst people of an already alarmed and aware group of nations. Those who can afford to do so, will certainly demand food sources free of contaminants. Australia continues to be able to produce such products (with a few notable problems on the way). World food prices would rise with any new major nuclear leaks in either Europe or America; Australia must be ready for that time. A lesson from the discussion of nuclear risk is, of course, that Australia should remain essentially nuclearfree, even though we can do little to prevent our close neighbours from developing nuclear energy for peaceful (or other) purposes. In addition, we should be alarmed by the public perceptions likely to be created here and overseas by any schemes to provide nuclear waste dumps here in Australia, irrespective of how lucrative these could be. Demands backed by people power for a return of agricultural land as clean habitat for birds and animals Ever more difficult control of pests Reduced fossil fuel availability and government regulation concerning its use The almost inevitable contamination of crops and animals by radioactive nucleides when the next nuclear accident occurs (probably in France or in the newly emerging nations that were previously part of Soviet Russia) In the developing countries the availability of grain for animal production is likely to decline with increasing population density for the above reasons, to which can be added: The green revolution may falter through limited use of inputs as economies, and resources such as water, decline Increased population pressures directing a greater proportion of the cereal crop to humans Increased urbanisation, with a greater share of the reduced yields being retained by small farmers for their own use Increased pollution and land degradation Global warming posing a special threat to many of the most fertile agricultural lands on river deltas, coastal areas and rift valleys as their climates change, sea levels rise, and crop failures from catastrophic weather takes its toll. A good example of this scenario may be Bangladesh (see Leng 1995) Factors that indicate a greater demand for clean export meat The countries whose exports of surplus grains have kept prices of meat low on world markets (Canada, US, Europe and some Soviet block countries) can be expected to reduce their surplus production in the future for reasons such as: Reduced subsidisation of farming Reduced yields through erosion and pollution control measures The net effect of all these changes will be that people wake up to the major problem of the widespread use of natural resources for the inefficient use of grains for animal feed. This is probably the 203rd argument against economic rationalism (see Ellis 1999). Unfortunately, many aid authorities consider it impossible to provide extra protein foods in developing countries without feeding grain to pigs and poultry. It was predicted by LesterBrown (1994) that China alone could import and use the worlds surpluses for these purposes in just a few years. Grazing versus intensive production systems Production of meat, milk or fibre from grazing is somewhat fossilfuel dependent but the implications for fuel resources are not as great as for grain production. For cereal grain production, sustainable, low chemical input systems are needed, with increased production from safe areas. Expansion of grain growing 208 Leng, R.A. without safeguards into marginal or semiarid regions should be denied. Livestock do not inevitably damage pasture lands, as was evidenced by the great herds of bison and deer that developed in balance with nature in the Americas and Africa. Problems arise with the management (and enclosure) of animals and the lack of flexible strategies to utilise pasture through periods of either high rainfall or drought so that the land does not become destabilised. About 50% of the usable land surface of the world is uilised by grazing animals. However, grazing systems supply only 9% of the worlds beef and 30% of the worlds sheep and goat meat. There will be a huge need to increase the efficient utilization of pasture and, at the same time, maintain sustainablity. Grazing systems throughout the world occur in arid, semiarid, sub humid, humid, temperate and tropical highland zones. Australia encompasses all these zones. The varied nature of such grass and crop lands makes it extremely difficult to rationalise animal production and provide a single simple remedy to low production. Each zone needs different management strategies. There will be an increasing demand for production of food for export as the pressures discussed above come into play. Australians can only produce a small proportion of the total needs of the importing countries in the world. For example, at the time of writing, China produces and consumes 2.7 times the amount of beef that Australia produces. Even if we increased our food production enormously, we could only make a small contribution to total requirements. A further issue is that the increasing markets will be in Asia where only a small proportion (but still a large number) of people can a fford to pay, and in Europe where pollution and economics are important reasons for allowing or denying our products market access. Australias likely future markets will be discerning and we should therefore look to quality products, free of any contaminants that could be unacceptable in such markets. In 1999, the USA banned meat products from the EEC when meat from animals given feeds from a single feed manufacturer in Belgium was found to be contaminated with dioxins. Cattle, sheep and goat produc