Here's the Beef! The World's Consuming More Meat

Americans will celebrate Independence Day on July 4 by watching fireworks and firing up their grills.

The world’s appetite for meat continues to grow, with 242 million tons produced in 2002, up 2.5 percent from 2001. Meat production has doubled since 1997 and has increased five-fold over the last half-century. Since the early 1960s, the number of livestock has increased 60 percent, from 3 billion to more than 5 billion, and the number of fowl has quadrupled, from 4 billion to 16 billion.

Producing meat requires large amounts of grain, and most of the corn and soybeans harvested in the world are used to fatten livestock. Producing one calorie of flesh (beef, pork, or chicken) requires 11-17 calories of feed, so a meat eater’s diet requires two to four times more land than a vegetarian’s diet.

Meat consumption levels are by no means evenly distributed around the world. In industrial nations, consumers eat more than 80 kilograms of meat per person per year. Comparatively, in developing countries, consumption sits at just 28 kilograms.

Source:

Meat Production and Consumption Grow, Vital Signs 2003, pp. 30-31.

Worldwatch Links:

Vital Signs 2003 press release
More research from Worldwatch

Additional Resources:

Global Action Resource Center for the Environment (GRACE)
Vegetarian Resource Group