Feeding stuff

Within the EU-25 about 450 million tonnes of feeding stuffs are consumed by livestock each year. Of this quantity 215 million tonnes mostly are roughages grown and used on the farm of origin. The balance, i.e. 235 million tonnes of feed, includes cereals or other feeding stuff grown and used on the farm of origin (51 million tonnes) and feed purchased by livestock producers to supplement their own feed resources (either feed materials or compound feed) (21).

The market for feeding stuffs depends on the market for livestock products and vice versa. In 2006, the EU-25 livestock population produced 45 million tonnes of meat (including 8 million tonnes of beef, 21 million tonnes of pork and 11 million tonnes of poultry meat), 131 million tonnes of milk and 6 million tonnes of eggs. Average per capita consumption of meat in 2006 was 93.4 kg, compared to only 50 kg in the EC-6 during the late 1950s. The value of livestock production - amounting to €130 billion - accounts for 42% of the overall EU-25 agricultural output amounting to €309 billion in 2006.

Germany is the leading cattle meat producer, Spain is now the leader for pig meat and France clearly breaks away from the other countries for poultry meat production (22). The primary producers of milk in the EU are Germany and France. The countries having a large production of meat, milk or other animal products must also have a high production/import of feeding stuff.

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Published 13-07-2010, 13:24:40