Oxford Vegetarians Web
site is hosted by the International
Vegetarian Union. Vegetarianism may be becoming more popular in countries such as the UK, but a recent press briefing from the prestigious Worldwatch Institute shows that worldwide meat consumption is growing at an alarming rate. An incredible 211 million tons of meat were produced worldwide in 1997, an almost fivefold increase since 1950, equivalent to 36 kg (or nearly 80 lbs) of meat per person, more than double the 1950 level. The boom in meat consumption has been accompanied by increased intake of all animal products, with per capita consumption of milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, eggs and fish each reaching record levels. Today, the Earth's 5.85 billion humans share the planet with 1.3 billion cattle, nearly 1 billion pigs, 1.8 billion sheep and goats, and 13.4 billion chickens.
Not surprisingly, meat eating is concentrated in a relatively few countries. Thus, the US, China, Brazil and the 15 countries of the European Union between them consume over 60% of the world's beef, more than 70% of the world's poultry and over 80% of the world's pork. Of the world's ten most populous nations, five (China, the US, Brazil, Russia and Japan) each consume large amounts of meat (ranging from 40 kg per person in Japan to 123 kg per person in the US), whereas the remaining five (India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria) all consume less than 5 kg per person per year. Overall, per capita meat consumption is three times as high in developed countries as in developing countries. Nevertheless, increasing affluence in the poorer nations (notably in China and other rapidly industrialising countries) has seen a doubling in per capita consumption of beef, pork and chicken over the past decade.
As well as representing a massive and wholly unnecessary loss of life as billions of animals are slaughtered for food every year, the trends spell pending disaster for the Earth's ecosystems and the world's poor. As overgrazing pushes the world's rangelands to the limit and beyond more animals are grain-fed. Already, 36% of the world's grain harvest (670 million tons) is fed to livestock. Just ten per cent of this, fed directly to humans, would be enough to sustain 225 million people. In a hungry world feeding grain to animals, from which only a fraction is returned as meat, milk or eggs, represents a scandalous waste of resources. Meat production also has a massive impact on water resources both in terms of usage (producing 1 kg of animal protein requires about 100 times as much water as 1 kg of grain protein) and the threat of pollution from the huge quantities of waste generated by intensive livestock enterprises (a 50,000 acre pig farm under construction in the US will generate more waste than the city of Los Angeles). The world's livestock also produce one quarter of all human-induced methane, a potent greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. All this for a food which has been implicated in major diseases such as heart disease and several cancers. Recognising this, the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine recently advised the Chinese government to limit the country's meat consumption in an effort to stem the massive health care costs arising from the treatment of previously rare chronic diseases. Whether this will be sufficient to turn the tide of rapidly increasing meat consumption in the world's most populous nation remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that a reduction in the consumption of animal protein worldwide would be of immense benefit to humans as well as animals.
Paul Appleby, October 1998
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Oxford Vegetarians Web
site is hosted by the International
Vegetarian Union.
This page created 3 October 1998 by Kate L Pugh.