German farm animals eat more regionally than consumers

192.2 million tonnes of feed were fed to livestock in the 2019/20 marketing year. This is reported by the Federal Association of Cattle and Pigs (BRS). 95 percent of this feed came from domestic production and was mostly grown on the livestock farms themselves. The proportion of imported feed amounted to only 4.6 percent of the total feed volume and consisted primarily of vegetable oils and fats, oil cake and oil meal as well as rapeseed and soya. According to the IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative, 46 percent of the soybeans or soy meal imported by Germany came from deforestation-free areas such as the USA. Animal husbandry makes meadows and pastures usable for food production According to the BRS, around 60 percent of the agricultural area in Germany is used for the cultivation of fodder, around half of which is meadows and pastures. This grassland usually cannot be used for any other purpose and is not suitable for growing crops due to the type of soil, slope or similar. Animal ...