In traditional production, animals play an equalizing role in agriculture. Because grass, crop wastes, and other fodder are widely dispersed, they are best utilized by small farms. Indeed, in most developing countries animals are more evenly distributed among agricultural families than land. The larger the operation, the lower the overhead costs per animal, and the cheaper the product. In most countries, even as meat output rises, the number of livestock producers falls.
Animal farms keep growing in size and dwindling in number.
The number of Japanese pork and poultry firms fell by two-thirds between 1965 and 1987. Thailand's chicken industry made a similar transition in the first half of the seventies. Likewise, five firms control 75 percent of Brazil's commercial poultry production. In the United States, where beef cattle are raised on grass for a year before going to the feedlot, the industry's profile reflects the concentrating power of grain feeding. More than a million farms and ranches raise young beef cattle, but four companies slaughter nearly 60 percent of them.