What can animal feed tell us about the global economy?

In the Middle Ages, farmers would put a bell around the neck of the lead ram (a wether) in a flock of sheep. The movements of the flock could be tracked by hearing the bell, even if the flock was not in sight. More than 1000 years later, we still use the term ‘bellwether’ to refer to an indicator or a predictor of something.

Drawn on data collected for seven years, from 130 countries, including visits to more than 30,000 feed mills, Alltech’s annual Global Feed Survey (GFS) report has become a bellwether of global economic trends, sometimes flagging changes before other indicators do. The market for animal feed has a direct impact on food prices, making the relative health of the global feed industry an interesting proxy for the health of the agricultural sector and by extension the overall global economy.

Although the US and China are the two biggest markets, and there are lots of interesting nuggets from around the world, this year the big stories from the GFS are found in the Southern Hemisphere.

The annual GFS reports provide the most comprehensive data available on the feed sector, which is now used by organizations such as the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO.org) and the International Feed Federation (IFIF.org) in setting policy and recommendations.