The relationship between livestock and food security is often portrayed by the media in emotional terms such as “Go vegetarian to save the planet". Yet the relationship is not so simple. There are positive impacts of livestock on “the planet,” not the least in terms of the economy, with trade in live ani-mals and animal products contributing 40% of the global value of agricultural output (FAO, 2009), but also in terms of the 1 billion poor people in Africa and Asia who depend on livestock for their livelihoods. The challenge is that there are also negative impacts of livestock, and they tend to be good headline grabbers!

I was pleased, therefore, to be invited to serve as guest editor of this issue of Animal Frontiers, which focuses on the topic of food security, and thus to have the opportunity to include papers about some of the lesser publicized facts about livestock and food security. Not even a whole issue could cover all aspects of that relationship, of course, and so I have been subjectively se-lective in the topics chosen. This is the fi rst installment on food security; the second installment will be published next July. This issue takes a high-level perspective, exploring the relationship between people and animals (includ-ing fi sh) in developing countries, through trade and particularly in terms of nutrition. It then looks ahead to the challenge of climate change and considers how one traditional system (pastoralism) has evolved to cope with environ-mental instability. It ends with a paper on breeding strategies as an illustration of how scientifi c advances can help the livestock sector to make the best use of resources in a dynamic world. Part 2 will look in more detail at the contri-bution of other technological advances.

The paper by Smith et al. (2013) highlights, for example, the indirect benefi ts of livestock to the food security of poor livestock owners through income from the sale of their livestock products, enabling the purchase of (cheaper) staple foods and thus improving the nutritional status of members of the household, albeit not in the way many researchers expect! This contrast of poor livestock owners providing the preferred food for richer consumers is given a higher profi le by the description of the “food transition process” by Guyomard et al. (2013), who illustrate how the transition process (between diets) in developing countries today is happening much faster than the earlier but similar transition that took place in developed countries as those who could afford to buy enough calories switched their dietary preferences from cereals and vegetables to sugars, fats, and animal products. Salter (2013) then

discusses the evidence behind the common perception that high consumption of animal products is invariably linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. The evidence supports the perceptions for high intakes of red and processed meat increasing health risks, but Salter points out the more recent shifts to poultry and fat-reduced dairy products in many developed countries, which have helped to mitigate some of that risk.

Fish, on the other hand, is generally seen as a healthy food source, which like livestock products, can provide high quality protein and important micro-nutrients to those consuming low calorie diets, but without the same disad-vantages at greater intakes. As noted by Muir (2013), some species are con-sumed by poor households, but there are also opportunities (as for livestock), for poor households to trade fi sh for other commodities to improve the nu-tritional balance of both buyers and sellers. As for livestock, the demand for fi sh products is increasing, with aquaculture meeting much of that response. Farming of some fi sh species puts increased pressure on feed supplies, which has resulted in an increase in the requirement for formulated feeds. This growth is small, however, compared with the growth in requirement for feed for livestock with slightly less than 50% of the extra billion tonnes of grain es-timated to be required by 2050 (IAASTD, 2009) expected to be used to feed livestock. The paper by Wheeler and Reynolds (2013) considers the potential impact of climate change on the supply of forage and cereals for animal feeds, highlighting risks to the quantity, quality, and volatility of feed supply chains. These authors highlight the high dependence on soybean as a protein source: soybeans provide 56% of global oilseed production and are a major export product of, for example, Brazil. They highlight the future volatility of yields of all crops including those used for feed and the uncertainty associated with modelling climate change.

Livestock, however, do not just compete with humans for grain, but can also produce food from land that could not sustain crop production. The impact of uncertain weather on feed supplies is nothing new to pastoralists. Krätli et al. (2013) highlight how pastoralism takes advantage of the inherent instability of rangelands through “strategic mobility” to turn the instability into an asset for food security. These authors reference the quantitative con-tribution of pastoralism to food security in a number of countries. They argue for a policy shift away from replacing pastoralism towards further develop-ment of a system that is well adapted to climatic uncertainty.

The fi nal paper addresses the issue of breeding strategies from the per-spective of the private sector and focusing on pigs and poultry, which supply approximately 38% of animal protein on a global basis. Neetson et al. (2013) © Gill

doi:10.2527/af.2013-0001

From the editor—The contribution of animal production to global food security: Part 1Livelihoods for poor owners and food for rich consumers

Maggie GillUK Department for International Development, 1 Palace Street, London SW1E 5HEUniversity of Aberdeen, ACES, 23 St Machar Drive, Aberdeen AB24 3UU.

4 Animal Frontiers

provide an illustration of how the annual commercial improvement in the feed conver-sion ration of poultry saves a cumulative 1.85 million tonnes of feed per year. The authors also point out how future breeding strategies will need to account for environ-mental as well as production goals, which is an important point on which to conclude. There was not enough space in this issue to give serious attention to environmental issues, but many other papers have addressed this issue in depth, and it is widely ac-cepted that increased production of food from livestock and fi sh (as for all agricultural products) must not be at the expense of the environment (e.g., FAO, 2009).

Literature CitedFAO. 2009. The state of food and agriculture: Livestock in the balance. FAO, Rome.Guyomard, H., S. Manceron, and J.-L. Peyraud. 2013. Trade in feed grains, animals, and ani-

mal products: current trends, future prospects, and main issues. Anim. Front. 3(1):14–18.IAASTD. 2009. Agriculture at a crossroads global report. Island Press, Washington, DC.Krätli, S., C. Huelsebusch, S. Brooks, and B. Kaufmann. 2013. Pastoralism: a critical asset for

food security under global climate change. Anim. Front. 3(1):42–50.Muir, J. F. 2013. Fish, feeds, and food security. 2013. Anim. Front. 3(1):28–34.Neeteson-van Nieuwenhoven, A.-M., P. Knap, and S. Avendaño. 2013. The role of sustainable

commercial pig and poultry breeding for food security. Anim. Front. 3(1):52–57.Salter, A. M. 2013. Impact of consumption of animal products on cardiovascular disease,

diabetes and cancer in developed countries. Anim. Front. 3(1):20–27.Smith, J., K. Sones, D. Grace, S. MacMillan, S. Tarawali, and M. Herrero. 2013. Beyond meat,

milk, and eggs: Livestock’s role in food and nutrition security. Anim. Front. 3(1):6–13.Wheeler, T. R., and C. K. Reynolds. 2013. Predicting the risks from climate change to forage and

crop production for animal feed. Anim. Front. 3(1):36–41.

About the AuthorMaggie Gill started her career as a livestock nutritionist research-ing how to maximize meat and milk production from forages. Realizing that was contributing to milk lakes and butter moun-tains in the 1980s, she switched from temperate to tropical ag-riculture and also developed a strong interest in how to reduce the negative impact of livestock on the environment, while mak-ing effective use of natural re-

sources, including land. She worked for the Natural Resources Institute from 1989 to 1996 and was the fi rst Chief Executive of Natural Resources International Ltd. from 1996 to 2000. From 2000 to 2006, Gill was Director of the Macaulay Land Use Re-search Institute, and from 2006 to 2011, Chief Scientifi c Adviser for Rural Affairs and Environment in the Scottish Government. She now works 30% for the UK Government’s Department for In-ternational Development and 20% for the University of Aberdeen and is a member of the Consultative Group for International Agri-cultural Research’s Independent Science and Partnership Council.Correspondence: m.gill@abdn.ac.uk

January 2013, Vol. 3, No. 1 5