Global meat-eating is on the rise
[1] When Zhou Xueyu and her husband moved from Shandong to Beijing 28 years ago, they began selling fresh pork. On a very busy day, they might sell about 100kg of meat: pork was still a luxury for the majority of the population.
[2] Now, they sell two tonnes (2000kg) of meat a day. They are keeping up with the growing obsession with meat in China - where people have a particular penchant for pork. In 1961, the average Chinese person ate 4kg of meat a year. And today? That is up to 62kg. In fact, half of the world's pork is eaten in China.[3] This is simply because the people of China are getting richer. In fact, people all over the world are earning more and they are spending a lot of that extra income on meat.
Global meat and dairy consumption have both risen at twice the rate of population growth.
[4] We are not just seeing more cows out in fields and huge barns set aside for raising chickens: the way we grow crops has changed, too. Four fifths of all agricultural land is used to grow feed for livestock, and the figures are only set to rise.
[5] Diets that rely more heavily on meat are excellent for the industry - both locally and internationally. China imports 100 million tonnes of soybeans every year (two thirds of total trade, purely to feed the animals that provide the 55 million tonnes of pork produced annually. A diet much richer in fat and grotein than in the past is changing the Chinese: in a little over thirty years, Chinese boys are on average nine centimetres taller and girls seven centimetres taller. Boys are becoming fatter, too.
[6] Globally, however, there is a shift from pork to beef, which is bad, because pigs are very good at converting feed into flesh. Cattle, however, are much less efficient. Beef production takes three times as much animal feed as pork production, and it also uses two and a half times as much water.
[7] It is interesting to consider why a country's meat-eating habits change. In America, chicken is now the most popular meat. It is thought that the drop in beef could be because more women are working and beef takes longer to cook - the nation's women just don't have the time to create beef dinners.[8] in Senegal, Africa, where people are moving from villages to cities, they have less time to make their traditional stews. Instead, they are getting hooked on fast food or eating out in cafes - grabbing food on the go' to take with them. In Senegal alone, the number of chickens has increased from 24 million to 60 million in the past fifteen years. It is possible to buy ready to eat chicken in the supermarkets, and the buyers are loving it.
9] The problem with much of Africa's meat, though, is its poor quality. Africa may have
23% of the world's cattle, but produces just 10% of the world's meat. In fact, Africa is the world's largest importer of meat and, as people become wealthier, this is only set to increase dramatically. The growing food industries on the continent are creating jobs and boosting the growth of chains and factories.[10] Although many people in Africa do not get to eat much meat, Richard Waite from the World Resources Initiative notes that when Africans open restaurants in wealthy countries, they usually have meat-heavy menus. In other words, they would be eating meat if they could afford it - and their increasing incomes back home in Africa's megacities will only be fuelling the meat industry.
[n] it is interesting that in the world's wealthiest nations, the taste for meat is slowly dropping off. Many people in the west now take part in Vegan January, eating no meat for a month. Meat Free Monday is also a popular movement. It remains to be seen if the world's producers, and the environment, can keep up with changing demands and trends.