Meeting the future global demand for livestock products is dictated, in part, by a sufficient animal feed supply. Quantifying national feed demand and associated land needs is critical to the assessment of feed security and the impact of livestock on the environment. Despite its importance, the Canadian national aggregate feed demand for livestock production was last estimated in 2001. This study provides methodology to estimate forage, grain, processing co-product and by-product feed needs and land use for animal agriculture (beef, bison, dairy, goats, sheep, horses and ponies, pigs, poultry, and aquaculture) in Canada. Based on 2016 livestock inventory data, the annual feed DM demand estimate was 64.0 Mt, which would require 17.9 Mha of agricultural land, assuming no feed imports. Feed, DM basis, consumed by farm animals was comprised of forages (68.7%), grains (24.9%), and agro-processing co-products and by-products including crop residue and straw used as feed (6.4%). Ruminant livestock (beef, bison, dairy, goats, and sheep) accounted for the greatest portion of feed demand on a DM basis (79.1%), followed by pigs (9.7%) and poultry (6.3%). This methodology can inform assessments of current and future feed and land needs, and potential impacts of shifting land use from feed production to food crops for human consumption or other land uses supporting human activities.
Kebebe et al. (Wed,) studied this question.