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Drivers of supply and demand of terrestrial animal source food - An evidence and policy overview on the state of knowledge and gaps

  • Publication | 2026

Diverse foods derived from livestock production systems, including grazing and pastoralist systems, and from the hunting of wild animals, provide high-quality proteins, important fatty acids and various vitamins and minerals – contributing to healthy diets for improved nutrition and health.Livestock species are adapted to a wide range of environments, including areas that are unsuitable for crop production. Globally, more than a billion people depend on livestock value chains for their livelihoods. Small-scale livestock farmers and pastoralists make up a large proportion of livestock producers. Well-integrated livestock production increases the resilience of small-scale farming systems. Livestock also provide other important ecosystem services in landscape management, provide energy and help to improve soil fertility. Rangeland or grassland ecosystems occupy some 40 percent of the world’s terrestrial area. Livestock keepers raise grazing animals to transform grassland vegetation into food.Challenges related to high resource utilization and pollution, food–feed competition, greenhouse gas emissions, antimicrobial resistance and animal welfare, as well as zoonotic and food-borne diseases, accessibility and affordability, need to be solved if agrifood systems are to become more sustainable.FAO’s Committee on Agriculture requested a comprehensive, science- and evidence-based global assessment of the contribution of livestock to food security, sustainable food systems, nutrition and healthy diets, considering environmental, economic and social sustainability. The assessment is divided into component documents. This second component document examines the determinants of the supply and demand of terrestrial animal source foods worldwide, as well as the factors that influence consumer behaviour and other individual circumstances surrounding the acquisition and consumption of these foods.

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