Can We Feed the Animals? Origins and Implications of Rising Meat Demand

The paper argues that current long-term projections of global meat and feed demand may underestimate future consumption patterns for mainly two reasons. First, they do not explicitly consider increased demand for protein foods of animal origin with rising incomes in some developing countries, and second they do not allow for changes in livestock technology, in particular feed demand. We then project the impact of both mechanisms to show the empirical relevance of our comments and suggest ready-to-use tools to consider them within standard projection models.