Embodied HANPP of feed and animal products: Tracing pressure on ecosystems along trilateral livestock supply chains 1986–2013

Nicolas Roux*, Lisa Kaufmann, Manan Bhan, Julia Le Noe, Sarah Matej, Perrine Laroche, Thomas Kastner, Alberte Bondeau, Helmut Haberl, Karlheinz Erb

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The global livestock system puts increasing pressures on ecosystems. Studies analyzing the ecological impacts of livestock supply chains often explain this pressure by the increasing demand for animal products. Food regime theory proposes a more nuanced perspective: it explains livestock-related pressures on ecosystems by systemic changes along the supply chains of feed and animal products, notably the liberalization of agricultural trade. This study proposes a framework supporting empirical analyses of such claims by differentiating several steps of livestock supply chains. We reconstructed “trilateral” livestock supply chains linking feed production, livestock farming, and final consumption, based on the global flows of 161 feed and 13 animal products between 222 countries from 1986 to 2013. We used the embodied Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (eHANPP) indicator to quantify pressures on ecosystems linked to these trilateral livestock supply chains. We find that livestock induced 65 % of agriculture's pressure on ecosystems, mostly through cattle grazing. Between 1986 and 2013, the fraction of livestock-related eHANPP that was traded internationally doubled from 7.1 % to 15.6 %. eHANPP related to the trade of feed was mostly linked to soybean imported for pig meat production, whereas eHANPP associated to traded animal products was mostly linked to cattle meat. eHANPP of traded animal products was lower but increased faster than eHANPP of feed trade. eHANPP was highest at the feed production level in South and North America, and at the consumption level in Eastern Asia. In Northern Asia and Eastern Europe, eHANPP was lowest at the animal products production level. In Western Europe, the eHANPP was equal at the animal products production and consumption levels. Our findings suggest that options to reduce livestock's pressures on ecosystems exist at all levels of the supply chain, especially by reducing the production and consumption in high-consuming countries and regulating international supply chains.

Original languageEnglish
Article number158198
Pages (from-to)1-16
Number of pages16
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume851
Early online date24 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) grant agreement No 765408 from the European Commission: COUPLED ‘Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use’. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the “NexusFootprints” project funded by Future Earth, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Science Program , partnering with Belmont Forum in Pegasus 3: SUGI-Nexus “Take it further” Grants G-85451-10 ; and contributions by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation; Project number KA 4815/1-1 ); the European Research Council (ERC) for the Starting Grant HEFT (Grant Agreement No 757995 ).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors

Keywords

  • Footprint
  • International trade
  • Meat
  • Net primary production
  • Soybeans
  • Telecoupling

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