Livestock farming intensification: Mitigating or exacerbating feed-food competition? Contrasting results in broiler, dairy, and beef production

Context Feed-food competition arises when livestock consume feed and use land that could serve human nutrition directly. Livestock intensification is often considered to improve productivity and resource-use efficiency; however, its impact on feed-food competition remains unclear, particularly across animal products. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate how intensification affects feed-food competition in broiler, dairy and beef commercial farms across Europe classified along a gradient of inputs related to intensification, under the hypothesis that productivity increases with the level of inputs. Methods We used data from 79 broiler, 77 dairy, and 53 beef farms selected across a wide range of farming systems from nine EU countries. We characterised intensification as a set of inputs intended to increase productivity and classified farms into six broiler, seven dairy, and six beef intensification classes. For each farm, we calculated the productivity, the protein feed conversion ratio considering all feeds or only human-edible feeds and the land use considering all land or only arable land. Results and conclusions Results show that intensification improves productivity, and feed and land use efficiencies but gains tend to plateau for high input systems – for example, for feed efficiency at around 2.8, 4.1 and 7.2 kg feed protein/kg protein produced in broilers, dairy and beef, respectively. When considering human-edible protein and arable land, in broilers, indoor systems required half as much resources as outdoor slow growing systems (2.8 vs. 5.0 kg/kg and 27 vs. 57 m2/kg). In cattle, strict grass-based systems required almost no human-edible feed protein or arable land, unlike high input systems (0.01 vs. 1.88 kg/kg and 10 vs. 34 m2/kg in dairy). Thus, in broilers, intensification mitigates feed-food competition up to a plateau, whereas in cattle, intensification exacerbates it, with grass-based systems even achieving net human-edible protein production. Significance These findings highlight that strategies to reduce feed-food competition appear species-specific and involve livestock intensification in different ways. Supporting grass-based dairy and beef systems, alongside reasonably efficient broiler production, could strengthen food-system sustainability and reduce competition for arable land and human-edible resources. By proposing a multidimensional characterisation of livestock intensification based on farm inputs, this study provides farm-based evidence on the potential and limits of livestock intensification in addressing feed-food competition and in guiding the design of more sustainable livestock systems. However, feed-food competition is only one aspect of sustainability, and broader environmental, economic, and social dimensions must also be considered.