to Prof. Dr Manfred Schwerin, spokesman of the Bio-economy council’s animal work group

The global demand for food based on animal proteins is placing ever greater demands on livestock production. Research in Germany has to balance the need for greater efficiency in feed production, the demand for sustainable farming and higher requirements in consumer protection. Is it equipped to do this? We put five questions on this topic to Manfred Schwerin, spokesman of the Bio-economy council’s animal work group.

1. Professor Schwerin, meat and dairy consumption is on the increase. At the same time consumers in Germany are making greater demands vis-à-vis sustainable farming and food quality. How can these demands be satisfied?

Schwerin: The rise in the world’s population, increasing prosperity in emerging nations and changes in dietary habits mean that the demand for animal products will continue to grow. The FAO predicts that the global demand for animal foodstuffs will almost double by 2050. We will only be able to meet this demand if we succeed in developing new production methods with a very high potential for innovation, so we can achieve sustained increases in animal feed yields and long-term greater efficiency in our livestock. For this we need the public to be open-minded, to create an environment in which the necessary research and innovation can take place, as well as reliable legal parameters. If you consider that more than 60% of all illnesses in modern industrial nations are related to an unbalanced diet, it is clear that in the future new products – foods with added medical benefits – will have an important part to play in preventing chronic illnesses.

2. Time and time again the relationship between dairy production and greenhouse gas emissions is brought up in discussions about climate change. Is a cow with a higher milk quota necessarily more climate friendly? What factors are at play here?

Schwerin: When evaluating the effects on climate we have to consider the different greenhouse potential of the various gases. Protein that comes from ruminants is produced with more equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2) than that from pigs or poultry. The chief cause of this is the methane produced by the microorganisms in the ruminants’ digestive tract. This gas has a greenhouse potential which is about 23 times higher than CO2. It is in fact the case that the cow which produces greater volumes of milk is more climate friendly. Although these animals produce more excrement overall, the proportion of waste is lower in relation to the product volume – the waste that comes from the unproductive share of food a cow needs to subsist is spread across a greater production volume. But ultimately this way of looking at the issue is too reductive. To maximise our chances of ‘reducing climate-harming gases’ we need integrated approaches that consider the entire production system, including the method and intensity of feed production, or assessing and meeting the demand.

We must also take into account the fact that ruminants are able to produce milk and meat from plant material that cannot be used by non-ruminants and humans. Across the globe there are 3.3 billion hectares of grassland which can be exploited to produce food for humans.

3. As with biomass crops for energy generation, the demand for arable land to produce animal feed is increasing. What solutions do you envisage to this problem, particularly with regard to the efficiency of new feed crops?

Schwerin: The doubling of the demand for animal-based foods by 2050 will only be satisfied if there is a substantial increase in the yields of crops used for feed. When breeding cultivars, more emphasis in the future must be placed on the nutritional value of these crops to ensure that animals are fed in a way which meets their requirements. The nutritional value of feed is variable, a fact which could be exploited to breed improved varieties, as has already happened with maize. In the future there will need to be much closer cooperation between plant breeding, feed crop cultivation and animal nutrition, including feed science.

4. One of the things your institute in Dummersdorf is working on is the optimisation of the meat–fat ratio in beef cattle, one of the characteristics that defines the quality of the meat from Japanese Kobe beef cattle. Should beef of such high quality be available to as many consumers as possible and, if so, how can this work economically?

Schwerin: With an intramuscular fat content of more than 30%, the meat from the Japanese Kobe beef cattle is a Japanese speciality and incompatible with German eating habits. In the research areas of muscular biology and growth at our institute we’re focusing on how beef can be produced in a way that conserves resources and also ensures positive nutritional qualities such as good fatty acid compositions and an optimal fat content for the domestic market.

5. In your opinion, what will happen if trade barriers continue to come down and large quantities of foreign meat come on to the German market, not just from South America, but also from China and eastern Europe? Can our standards of animal protection be met in these places? And do you see the population becoming further detached from quality demands for food and thus health care through nutrition?

Schwerin: On the one hand, as global competition increases there will be a continual need to develop economically efficient production strategies. On the other hand, with the ongoing removal of trade barriers and the emergence of location advantages, this competition will inevitably lead to the development of regional strategies in the premium and ‘health care’ sectors, with specific methods of animal husbandry, as well as breeding and marketing programmes. I don’t really see ‘large quantities of foreign meat on the German market’ as in order to meet the necessary European production standards with regard to consumer and animal protection these countries cannot maintain their current production costs, which in some cases are very low.

In view of the fact that about two thirds of all human pathogens originate from animals and that the globalisation of markets and climate change will increase the number of pathogens previously considered ‘exotic’ in the German livestock population, a key aspect of consumer protection in the future will be the rigorous implementation of high sanitary standards in animal husbandry.

It is also true that a balanced diet is an important aspect of health care. But for this to be achieved we need, in addition to developing appropriate products, to ensure that people have access to educational information on balanced diets and changes in eating habits.