So what are current changes that may have a reflection on animal breeding? One big difference in the developed world today compared to 30 years ago is that people are relatively rich and/or food has become relatively cheap. The spend a small percentage of their income for buying food as can be seen in this figure:
In the western world, there is an increasing concern of people for how their food was produced. It should be healthy and natural and produced locally. In addition, animal products should also be produced welfare friendly. In our culture, this is considered very normal, but it is a definite sign of wealth that people can afford to care about these issues. Recently, a lot of awareness is at stake about the consequences of climate change and the role of greenhouse gas emissions from animal production systems in this ongoing process. And in Western Europe the effect of nitrogen emissions on the quality of nature areas and water quality became an important point of concern. Thus in the developed world the number of societal conditions for animal production systems are increasing affecting also the directions for animal breeding activities.