2025粮饲分流：遏制全球最大规模粮食浪费问题与解决路径报告

October 2025 If the use of grain as animal feed was ended,an extra2 billion people could be fed each year CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 Composition of broiler and pig diets11 2.FEEDING GRAIN TO ANIMALS – A FORM OF FOOD LOSS12 The poor conversion by animals of graininto protein and energy13Staggeringly inefficient20European Union: food wasted by feeding grain to animals21US: food wasted by feeding grain to animals22UK: food wasted by feeding grain to animals22France: food wasted by feeding grain to animals22Micronutrients23 3.FUTURE PROJECTIONS 24 4.THE GREATER PART OF FACTORY FARMING’S ENVIRONMENTAL HARMSARISE FROM FEED PRODUCTION30 Detrimental impact of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers31 Detrimental impact of chemical pesticides32 The inefficiency of feeding grain to animals is compounded by its high, polluting use ofwater and land, and its largeGHG emissions33 Landgrabs, violence and health impacts40 Hotspots in which huge numbers of animal farms are clustered together40 How many morepeople could be fed ifthe feeding of human-ediblegrain to animals was ended?41 How much arable land could be saved if the feeding of human-edible grain to animals was ended?42 We need to shift from considering yield per hectare to counting number of people fed per hectare43 Farm animals have a vital role to play in healthy,nature-friendly agriculture46 Multiple benefits would arise from reducing global production of animal-sourced food andmoving to dietswith a higher proportion of plant-based food51 Policy proposals for a phased transition away from the high use of grain and soy as animal feed52 6.CONCLUSION ANNEX56 REFERENCES58 EXECUTIVESUMMARY Industrial animal production – in which largenumbers of animals are crammed togetherin overcrowded sheds – is praised as beingresource-efficient. ‘Look at how many pigs andchickens we can produce on this small parcelof land.’ But this is a deception, the clever trick of thecard cheat. It hides the reality that a much largeramount of land is needed to produce the grainand soy used to feed industrially farmed animals.In fact, literally 99 times more land is needed toproduce the feed for industrially farmed pigs andchickens than is used to house them on the farm.1 But a second tranche of resource-inefficiencymust be factored in. Animals convert grain –wheat, maize/corn, barley – very inefficiently intomeat and milk. Studies show that for every 100calories of human-edible grain fed to animals,just 3-25 calories enter the human food chainas meat.23And for every 100 grams of proteinin human-edible grain fed to animals, just 5-40grams of protein enter the human food chainas meat.45 This is inefficiency on a grand scale. It’s as if forevery 100 new homes that are built, some 70 areimmediately bulldozed. Medieval alchemy soughtto turn base metals into gold. This is reverse-alchemy – turning nutritious grain into waste. In light of these poor conversion rates, we needto extend the concept of food waste beyond theconventional definition (e.g. being discardedby households, retailers, restaurants, and foodservice operators) to include the waste entailedin feeding human-edible crops to farmed animals. This report shows that in many countries much more food is wasted by using grain as animal feed,than is wasted in the conventional sense. The figures of waste in this report do not refer to the totalgrain fed to animals; they are the amount that is wasted due to several plant-derived calories or gramsof protein being needed to produce one calorie or one gram of protein in meat, milk, and eggs.In the EU, for example, 124 million tonnes of grain are lost each year due to the conversioninefficiencies of producing meat, milk, and eggs compared to 59 million tonnes of conventional foodwaste. In the US the gap is even wider: 160 million tonnes lost via animal feed inefficiency, versus 66million tonnes through traditional waste. Globally 766 million tonnes of grain are wasted annually by being fed to pigs, broiler chickens, layinghens, beef cattle, and dairy cows.This is much larger than any other form of food waste. The UNEnvironment Programme (UNEP)’s 2024 Food Waste Index[i]report shows other forms of global foodwaste in 2022 as being as follows: •Households – 631 million tonnes•Food service – 290 million tonnes•Retail – 131 million tonnes Feeding grain to animals is a waste not just of these crops but of thescarce land, water, and energy used to produce them Soy. The fact that a large proportion of global soy production is used as feed for farmed animals – and thatthis is a key driver of deforestation – is widely known. There is, however, much less recognition of thefact that huge amounts of grain are also fed to animals; indeed the use of grain far outweighs the useof soy in the feed of industrially reared animals.6 [i]United Nations Environment Programme, 2024. Food Waste Index Report, 2024. Nairobi. Feeding grain toanimals ... ... undermines food security Some argu