Global Livestock Costing Model

This report describes the construction of a detailed bottom-up database quantifying production costs of nine input factors to livestock production systems distinguished in two main classifications for globally dominant production systems: grass-based and mixed feed-grass systems. The resulting livestock costing model uses national-scale information to estimate on-farm production costs covering three animal species: cattle, sheep and goat. Production costs were sourced from national household surveys and global agricultural databases. For countries with no data availability cost input factors were extrapolated based on case-study countries representing different global production regions each with unique biophysical, agroecolocial and socio-economic characteristics. The costing data presented here allows for flexible integration and linkage with broader agro-economic assessment frameworks, or large-scale land based production sector models such as the FABLE calculator. The cost data can be downscaled to a spatially explicit grid level following a method that uses intensification factors. It serves as baseline representing costs of production in a given base year and has the purpose to assist in addressing a variety of research questions on economic cost implications of sustainable transition pathways of livestock production.