China, the world’s biggest meat producer, may double its output of industrial animal feed in about 10 years to supply its fast expanding livestock production, an executive at Cofco Ltd. said.

Output will be more than 250 million metric tons by 2020, growing from 148 million tons last year, on “inelastic demand growth” for meat, dairy and poultry, Liu Xiaoyu, general manager of Cofco’s feed division, said in slides to be presented at a conference organized by Shanghai JC Intelligence Co. in Tianjin today. Feed is made mainly from corn, soybeans and other oilseeds.

The “rapid” growth in feed output has been helped by reform in China’s livestock sector, with more advanced large- scale livestock operations replacing the traditional family- based raising, which often used food waste as feed, Liu said. The government also provided assistance to spur the sector’s growth, the slides said.

China’s industrial feed production grew from 2 million tons in 1980 to 148 million tons in 2009, an annualized rate of 16 percent, Liu said. The rate of growth was 7.98 percent in 2000- 2009, he said.

In the first half of 2010, commercial livestock feed gained 4.6 percent to 66.3 million tons even as the sector faced a “complex operating environment,” including surging corn prices, Liu’s slides said.

Last year, Sichuan-based New Hope Group Co. produced 13 million tons of animal feed, replaced the China division of Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group Co. as China’s biggest, Liu’s slide showed. New Hope is now ranked as the world’s third biggest feed maker after Charoen Pokphand and Cargill/Agribrands, he said.

China’s feed output growth is pressuring domestic corn supply, Liu said in the slides. By 2020, more of the country’s grain will be used to feed animals than for human consumption, Liu said.

State-owned Cofco is China’s biggest grain trader.