Circular agriculture in Kenya: Livestock diets depend on food-competing feed ingredients and on external feed inputs

The rising demand for animal-source food (ASF) is driving the intensification of livestock systems, increasing the need for high-quality feed resources, such as concentrate feed. This trend may reduce circularity through increased feed-food competition and disrupt nutrient cycles. To examine these dynamics, the present exploratory descriptive study assessed the circularity of livestock diets, using feed-food competition and reliance on external feed inputs as proxies. Diet compositions were characterized through interviews with livestock farmers (dairy cattle, dairy goats, pigs, and poultry), and the origins of external feed ingredients were traced through follow-up interviews with feed suppliers. Concentrate feeds had the highest inclusion levels in monogastric diets, indicating a strong dependency on off-farm sourced ingredients, while ruminants primarily relied on on-farm crop residues and feed crops. Poultry diets contained substantial amounts of food-competing ingredients (i.e. maize grain, fish meal, and soybean meal) resulting in higher human-edible protein (HeP) and human-edible energy (HeE) proportions compared to dairy goats, pigs, and dairy cattle (0.73, 0.24, 0.23, 0.09 HeP; and 0.62, 0.09, 0.14, 0.05 HeE, respectively). Protein-rich concentrates were mostly imported from the region (e.g. Tanzania, Uganda), while energy-rich ingredients were sourced nationally, regionally (i.e. East Africa), and globally (e.g. Ukraine). Feed additives (e.g. minerals and vitamins) were sourced globally. The widespread use of food-competing ingredients and reliance on external feed inputs underscores the need to shift to locally available, non-food-competing feed resources, especially in the poultry sector.