Food Production Patterns

Nine Food Production Patterns

1. Global meat production has increased almost five-fold in the last 60 years, reaching 341 million tonnes in 2018 compared to 71 million tonnes in 1961 (1). However, due to the increasing shift towards chicken production, latest figures indicate the number of animals reared for meat during this period has increased almost ten-fold to a staggering 77 billion animals (2)
2. The largest growth in meat production has occurred in Asia, which now represents 40-45 percent of total global production, largely driven by China (1)
3. Poultry meat has almost tripled its share of global production (12 to 36 percent) in this time period, whilst pig meat has remained constant at 35 percent and beef has halved (from 40 to 20 percent) (1)
4. In terms of number of animals, global meat production has increased from 7.7 billion animals in 1961 to over 72 billion animals in 2018 (1), with most recent estimates of 77 billion animals
5. By far the most animals reared are chicken at over 69 billion compared to 1.5 billion pigs and 302 million cattle – see Figure below
6. In addition, there are 7.5 billion laying hens producing 1.4 trillion eggs, and 280 million dairy cows producing 660 billion litres of milk (2)
7. It is estimated that annual fish catches represent between 790 billion and 2.3 trillion individual fish and farmed fish is estimated to include 51-167 billion fish (3)
8. Animals and fish are sentient beings. We have a moral duty therefore to reduce the number of lives used for food and ensure waste is minimised throughout the supply chain.
9. Reducing meat consumption would also benefit the planet and our health. A clear majority of credible scientific papers such as:
   • the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), https://www.ipcc.ch/
   • the Intergovernmental Science Platform on Biodiversity (IPBES) https://ipbes.net/globalassessment and
   • the EAT-Lancet Commission https://eatforum.org/content/uploads/2019/07/EAT-Lancet_Commission_Summary_Report.pdf
   conclude that meat and dairy must begin to play a much smaller role in our daily diets.