Determination of Composition and Amount of Different Feeds to Produce Animal Products to Use in Agricultural Policy Studies in Iran

Background: The value of water, energy, and food resources is such that access to and proper use of these resources are pillars of security, success, and equality worldwide.Today, governments are struggling to find solutions to a complex set of problems that, if left unresolved, could lead to the collapse of human civilization.Many of these problems are directly related to the production and distribution of water, energy and food.Due to the vastness and complexity of each of these areas (water, energy and food), decisions made by governments rarely cover all aspects.In a country like Iran, which faces a shortage of water resources, about 20 percent of the total agricultural products and food needed by the people are supplied through imports.Therefore, examining the consequences of importing agricultural products for livestock nutrition and livestock product production can be very important.This is a complex challenge that must be considered in its various aspects in order to produce and supply the food products needed in the country with the least losses.In industrialized countries such as the European Union, integrated assessment models are used to conduct this type of analysis and examine various aspects of agricultural-related issues.In these models, attempts are made to evaluate various aspects of decisions before implementation, in terms of economic issues, energy, population, diet, climate change, land use, environmental pollution, water consumption, etc.To increase the performance of this model, accurate information and inputs are needed for this model at the national level.The amount and type of feed consumed at the national scale for the production of livestock and poultry products is one of the required input information for this model.Although the feed ration for livestock and poultry on a small scale such as livestock or poultry farms is known in the country, this information has not been calculated and reported at the national scale so far Determining the country's representative information on the type and amount of feed for the production of livestock and poultry products can play an important role in the macro-policy of management and supply of feed in the country.The purpose of this study was to estimate the type and amount of feed for the production of each unit of livestock and poultry products in the country.To do this, the metabolizable energy of the feed and the conversion efficiency coefficients of the metabolizable energy into livestock and poultry products were used.Methods: In this study, in order to calculate the conversion rate of feed to product, in addition to the feed consumed in the fattening period, the livestock lactation period and the chicken laying period, the amount of feed consumed in other periods such as the pregnancy period, dry period, before the start of fattening, before from the beginning of poultry laying, the feed consumed by breeding males, the feed consumed to provide energy for livestock walking in the pastures were also considered in the calculations.The amount and type of feed for the production of red meat and milk was calculated in four steps: In the first step, the total amount of metabolizable energy of the feed was calculated by the type of animal and feed.For this purpose, information on the amount of feed consumed by livestock, intensive cattle farming and extentive cattle farming in the country was prepared.This information was extracted from the statistics center of Iran from livestock farms in 2015 and 2016.In the second step, the feed consumed for milk production was separated from the total feed consumed by different livestock groups (intensive cattle farming, extentive cattle farming and extensive goat and sheep farming) in the country.The total feed consumption for each group of livestock was in the country.The fourth step was to calculate the amount of feed consumed by livestock for factors other than milk and red meat production.