Dairy products — key to a sustainable food system

The increasing demand for food and resources due to the rising and rapid growth of the population is a severe threat to world sustainability. In fact, our population of 7.9 billion is growing at an alarming rate of 1.05% per year. This means our resources are continuously depleting without a chance of being replenished. As a result, we need to use all possible means to find solutions to keep the environment safe, protect world biodiversity, avoid deforestation, ensure sufficient water supply, and to use all other available resources economically and efficiently.

As a result of the increasing world population, the need for protein consumption is also increasing dramatically. Ruminants are crucial for fulfilling the increasing demands on high-quality animal protein, milk, and meat. Intriguingly, ruminants are the highest land occupying animals worldwide and are the primary source of protein for people living in developing areas, especially in less fertile or in desert areas. Additionally, we must not forget that we will need to increase the rate of food production to meet the needs of a growing population and for that ruminant production is key with its role of converting vegetable protein into animal protein, contributing substantially to human nutrition by the production of milk and meat. Rumen microorganisms process lignocellulose from low quality roughage into volatile fatty acids and energy, to transfer non-protein nitrogen into microbial protein.

What is more is that we need to consider essential and effective strategies for sustainable feeding and intensification of animals.