Af. Bouwman et H. Booij, GLOBAL USE AND TRADE OF FEEDSTUFFS AND CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NITROGEN-CYCLE, Nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, 52(2-3), 1998, pp. 261-267
This paper presents an estimate of the amount of nitrogen involved in
the use and trade of feedstuffs for a number of world regions. Livesto
ck production has shown a steady increase world-wide as a result of an
annual increase of 1.4% in developing countries and 0.9% in developed
countries during the period 1960-1990. Particularly in developing cou
ntries, the strong growth of animal production and a tendency towards
decreasing reliance on grazing and increasing importance of fodder cro
ps and feed concentrates, cause a major increase in the consumption of
feedstuffs. Cereals form the major feedstuff world-wide. The current
global use of cereals for feed is about 30% of the total use (57% in d
eveloped countries and 17% in developing countries). Net trade of cere
als and other feedstuffs represents 4-8 Tg N per year, which is only 4
-7% of the total N consumption by the world's animal population. A str
ong growth of the per capita food consumption, a relative increase of
meat consumption, coupled with a strong population growth, may cause a
strong increase of the net trade of cereals. In particular the countr
ies of the Middle East, North Africa and China may become important im
porters of cereals. In future, the N transport between regions in the
form of feedstuffs may become an important component in the global N c
ycle.