China's meat and egg production and soybean meal demand for feed: An elasticity analysis and long-term projections?

China is a large meat and egg producer and correspondingly a large soybean meal consumer. Dual forces affect the derived demand for soybeans; rising livestock production to meet consum-er demand for protein and the shift to commercial feed by the livestock industry. We employ a unique elasticity approach to estimate these dual forces on soybean meal demand over the next 20 years. We then discuss the implications of these forecasts with respect to the modernization of China's feed industry, land use changes in South America, and the need for yield research to reduce pressure on increasingly scarce land resources.