Summary
This global analysis of livestock product trade across 200 countries and 59 years demonstrates that international trade has enhanced micronutrient productivity for six of seven studied micronutrients (all except vitamin A), thereby reducing the livestock and feed inputs required to meet equivalent micronutrient supply. The efficiency gains suggest that structured expansion of livestock trade between exporting and importing countries could deliver environmental co-benefits through lower greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen losses while improving micronutrient availability.
UK applicability
As a net importer of livestock products, the United Kingdom may benefit from trade-enabled access to micronutrients with lower embedded environmental costs; however, the findings' applicability depends on UK import source countries and their relative production efficiencies, which the paper does not disaggregate by trading partner.
Key measures
Micronutrient productivity per livestock unit; micronutrient productivity per feed nitrogen input; livestock unit requirements; feed nitrogen requirements; greenhouse gas emissions; nitrogen losses
Outcomes reported
The study quantified how international livestock trade has affected micronutrient productivity per livestock unit and per unit of feed nitrogen input across 200 countries and 77 livestock commodities from 1961–2019. It measured the associated changes in livestock unit requirements and nitrogen losses needed to deliver equivalent micronutrient quantities.
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