China's livestock transition: Driving forces, impacts, and consequences

Abstract

China's livestock industry has experienced a vast transition during the last three decades, with profound effects on domestic and global food provision, resource use, nitrogen and phosphorus losses, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the driving forces around this transition and its national and global consequences. The number of livestock units (LUs) tripled in China in less than 30 years, mainly through the growth of landless industrial livestock production systems and the increase in monogastric livestock (from 62 to 74% of total LUs). Changes were fueled through increases in demand as well as, supply of new breeds, new technology, and government support. Production of animal source protein increased 4.9 times, nitrogen use efficiency at herd level tripled, and average feed use and GHG emissions per gram protein produced decreased by a factor of 2 between 1980 and 2010. In the same period, animal feed imports have increased 49 times, total ammonia and GHG emissions to the atmosphere doubled, and nitrogen losses to watercourses tripled. As a consequence, China's livestock transition has significant global impact. Forecasts for 2050, using the Shared Socio-economic Pathways scenarios, indicate major further changes in livestock production and impacts. On the basis of these possible trajectories, we suggest an alternative transition, which should be implemented by government, processing industries, consumers, and retailers. This new transition is targeted to increase production efficiency and environmental performance at system level, with coupling of crop-livestock production, whole chain manure management, and spatial planning as major components.

Fig. 1. Concept of the livestock transition in China between 1980 and 2010.

The left- and right-hand graphs show the crop production (bottom), livestock production (middle), and the consumption of food (top). Solid arrows represent nutrient inputs and outputs; the dotted arrows represent nutrient recycling flows. The thickness of the arrows reflects the size of the flows. Draft is the draft power provided by the draft animals.

Fig. 2. Changes of livestock production structure, resources demand, and environmental performance from 1980 to 2010.

(A and B) Livestock number and systems (in LUs). (C to E) Production performance: animal protein production and economic value. Nutrient use and recycling: external resources dependency indicator expressed in cereals feed dependency (F), manure nitrogen recycle rate (G), new nitrogen dependency (H), and imported feed nitrogen (I). Feed and land use: corn (J), soybean (K), grass (L), and land requirement for manure application (M). Environmental pollution: GHG emissions (N), NH₃-N emissions (O), and N losses to watercourses (P). Soybean includes soybean and soybean cakes. Feed is expressed as DM. Land for manure application is defined as the area of land needed to apply the manure at an application rate of 170 kg N ha⁻¹ per year.

Fig. 3. Driving forces of livestock transition in China.

Relationships between livestock number (in LUs), the percentage of monogastric animals (in LUs) to total number of animals (in LUs), and the percentage of livestock in landless systems (percentage of landless) versus human population (A), average GDP value per capita (B), urbanization (C), and years of the introduction of governmental support policies (D). For details about the livestock production support policies, see table S2.

Fig. 4. Changes of production efficiency in terms of animal protein produced.

Changes in livestock production efficiency between 1980 and 2010: feed use per unit protein produced (A), land use per unit protein produced (B), new nitrogen (N) use per unit protein produced (C), GHG emission per unit protein produced (D), reactive N (Nr) losses per unit protein produced (E), NUE (nitrogen use efficiency) at herd level (F), and NUE at the whole system level (G). NUE was calculated at herd level, including all main livestock categories, breeding animals, and replacement animals (cattle, pig, poultry, and sheep and goat) and at system level, including the whole soil-feed-livestock production chain.

Fig. 5. Response of China’s livestock transition in 2050 under different scenarios.

Livestock density at province level in China in 1980 and 2010.

Fig. 6

Changes in livestock production performance between 1980 and 2010 and forecasts for 2050 following the SSPs SSP2 and SSP1e: total feed use (A), total land use (B), total GHG emissions (C), total reactive N (Nr) losses (D), NUE at herd level (E), and NUE at whole system level (F). Soybean includes both soybean and processed (for example, soybean cake).