The worldwide demand for animal products is increasing: global meat consumption is projected to double in the coming 35 years. At the same time, availability of resources such as land and water are decreasing. This requires livestock production to increase its productivity and its reproductive efficiency, and to reduce its environmental impact. Animal breeding must support this. Livestock breeding goals should then broaden in a balanced way, focusing on productivity and efficiency, subject to certain external constraints and internal restrictions. External constraints are due to feed availability and environmental load (which calls for genetic improvement of livestock feed efficiency, reproductive efficiency, gross production levels, and liveability), and to animal welfare (which calls for genetic improvement of liveability, adaptability and health). Internal restrictions are due to genotype by environment interaction (which calls for data recording at the producer level and using those data for genetic evaluation at the nucleus level), antagonisms between traits (which calls for wide data recording and balanced breeding goals incorporating all possibly antagonistic traits), and selection limits (which calls for proper strategies for restriction of inbreeding rate, and optimization of genetic contributions and mate allocation within populations). Commercial poultry and pig breeding goals have been evolving in that direction since the 1950s, and this logically extrapolates toward a shift of focus on animal robustness, feed efficiency, and product quality traits. At the same time, selection technology is becoming more powerful at a very fast rate, mainly due to molecular genetics tools. As a result of both these developments, animal breeding can make an increasing contribution to sustainable food security.