A glimpse of the future in animal nutrition science. 1. Past and future challenges

Abstract

-If the world population continues to increase exponentially, wealth and education inequalities might become more pronounced in the developing world. Thus, offering affordable, high-quality protein food to people will become more important and daunting than ever. Past and future challenges will increasingly demand quicker and more innovative and efficient solutions. Animal scientists around the globe currently face many challenging issues: from ensuring food security to prevent excess of nutrient intake by humans, from animal welfare to working with genetic-engineered animals, from carbon footprint to water footprint, and from improved animal nutrition to altering the rumen microbiome. Many of these issues are most likely to continue (or to exacerbate further) in the coming years, but animal scientists have many options to surmount the obstacles posed to the livestock industry through tools that are presently available. The frequency, interval, and intensity of livestock impacts, however, differ across regions, production systems, and among livestock species. These differences are such that the generalization of these issues is impossible and dangerous. For instance, when we discuss domesticated ruminant nutrition in the human food context, we look for the most efficient ruminant feeds that complement, rather than compete with, grains grown for direct human nutrition. Greater scrutiny and standardization are needed when developing and validating methodologies to assess short-and long-term impacts of livestock production. Failure in correctly quantifying these impacts may lead to disregard and disbelief by the livestock industry, increased public confusion, and the development of illusionary solutions that may amplify the impacts, thereby invalidating its original intent.Key Words: challenges, issues, livestock, ruminant, production Revista Brasileira de Zootecnia

Genetic mechanisms underlying feed utilization and implementation of genomic selection for improved feed efficiency in dairy cattle

“…Consequently, the science of animal nutrition has evolved rapidly and resulted in major contributions to a better understanding of the nutritional physiology of cattle and its nutrient requirements. This had led to major advancements in diet formulation, supplementation, and techniques for food processing and storage (Eastridge 2006;Coffey et al 2016;de Ondarza and Tricarico 2017;Tedeschi et al 2017). Despite the clear effectiveness of these developments, the need for a more permanent and cumulative solution has been envisioned through genetic selection for a long time in various livestock species, including cattle (e.g., Stone et al 1960;Koch et al 1963;Freeman 1967;Herd et al 2003).…”

How to manage cows yielding 20,000 kg of milk: technical challenges and environmental implications

“…The increase of productivity is the main strategy to improve the sustainability of agriculture in general (Tedeschi et al 2017;Tilman et al, 2011) and the dairy industry has been demonstrated to follow this rule (Capper and Cady 2020). To check the relationship between the delivered fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM; 3.5% fat, 3.1% protein) and carbonfootprint (CF) and nitrogen footprint (NF), a cradle-to-farm gate LCA study including a survey on 282 dairy farms on Southern Italy was performed, with a modified TIER 2 of IPCC 2006 (Cannas et al 2013;Serra et al 2013;Serra 2014).…”

A glimpse of the future in animal nutrition science. 2. Current and future solutions

“…Many of the issues highlighted by Tedeschi et al (2017) and discussed above behave like a wicked problem; they have "… the essential characteristic that it is not solvable; it can only be managed" (Rittel and Webber, 1973). This type of problem requires the combination of knowledge, innovation, and transdisciplinary scholarship to be dealt with (Peterson, 2013).…”

“…In a companion paper, Tedeschi et al (2017) discussed major challenges the animal industry has confronted in the past and challenges that will likely hassle the animal industry despite tremendous advancements and transformations in the livestock business. Briefly, the main public concerns are animal health and welfare, antibiotic resistance as a potential threat to human health, and food safety/quality have further intensified the challenge of producing animalprotein foods in an economic, environmentally, and socially sustainable manner.…”