Global beef production: Trends, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable development

Sustainable livestock systems require managing trade‐offs and synergies across productive, socioeconomic, and environmental dimensions to meet rising global beef demand. We present a biophysical framework to analyze how management‐driven energy allocation is manifested through herd size and total and per‐head beef productivity. Global and national beef production trajectories (1961–2021) suggest that post‐2011 growth has been driven more by stock expansion (0.67% year −1 ) than by productivity gains (0.46% year −1 ), contributing to declining per capita beef production. Across regions (e.g., sub‐Saharan Africa, South Asia, and northern South America), reallocating resources from herd expansion (∼2% year −1 ) toward improving productivity of existing animals (over 900 million head currently operating below the global average of 48 kg carcass eq. animal −1 year −1 ) emerges as a key pathway to reconcile production and sustainability goals. While dependent on regional contexts, this strategy suggests a substantial opportunity to meet future demand and sustain per capita beef production.