Livestock eat 66% of grain in Australia
Feed for farm animals accounts for two-thirds of domestic grain consumption in 2022.
It takes a lot of wheat to make a bit of meat. Demand for feed from Australia’s livestock industries is “by far the largest domestic market for Australian grain”1 and “a key driver of grain production,” particularly in the northern region.2
Last year, farm animals chewed through 11 billion kilograms of grain,3 mostly wheat and barley. That accounted for two-thirds (66%) of domestic grain consumption in 2022. Put another way, Australian livestock ate nearly 2kg of grain for every 1kg consumed by the Australian people for other purposes like food, seed and industrial products.
It turns out supplying meat and milk consumes much more grain than flour and beer.
Infographics to share:
Notes:
Spragg, J. (2018). Australian Feed Grain Supply and Demand Report 2018. Feed Grain Partnership/JCS Solutions. An archived version of the report is accessible at: https://web.archive.org/web/20221021092018/http://www.feedgrainpartnership.com.au/items/1023/FGP%20Feed%20Grain%20Supply%20and%20Demand%20Report%20Oct%202018.pdf. See p. 22.
Grains Research and Development Corporation. (2021). Growing regions. https://grdc.com.au/about/our-industry/growing-regions.
The following grain estimates are based on Production, Supply and Distribution (PSD) data sets released by the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). See: FAS. (2023). PSD Data Sets: Grains. USDA. https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/app/index.html#/app/downloads. [Note that the grains data set accessed for estimations was the version prior to the 9 June 2023 update.]