Meat production

Citation

(2012), "Meat production", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 42 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2012.01742baa.002

Meat production

Article Type: Food facts From: Nutrition & Food Science, Volume 42, Issue 2

Global meat production and consumption have increased rapidly in recent decades, with harmful effects on the environment and public health as well as on the economy, according to research done by Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project for Vital Signs Online. Worldwide meat production has tripled over the last four decades and increased 20 percent in just the last ten years. Meanwhile, industrial countries are consuming growing amounts of meat, nearly double the quantity than in developing countries.

“Much of the vigorous growth in meat production is due to the rise of industrial animal agriculture, or factory farming,” said Danielle Nierenberg, Worldwatch senior researcher and director of Nourishing the Planet.

“Factory farms pollute the environment through the heavy use of inputs such as pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers used for feed production”. Large-scale meat production also has serious implications for the world’s climate. Animal waste releases methane and nitrous oxide, greenhouse gases that are 25 and 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, respectively. “The world’s supersized appetite for meat is among the biggest reasons greenhouse gas emissions are still growing rapidly,” said Worldwatch President Robert Engelman. “Yet properly managed and scaled meat production – like the kind pursued by small-scale pastoralists on dry grasslands – could actually sequester carbon dioxide. It’s largely a matter of rethinking meat at both ends of the production-consumption trail.”

Dirty, crowded conditions on factory farms can propagate sickness and disease among the animals, including swine influenza (H1N1), avian influenza (H5N1), foot-and-mouth disease and mad-cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy). These diseases not only translate into enormous economic losses each year, the UK alone spent $18-$25 billion in a three-year period to combat foot-and-mouth disease, but they also lead to human infections.

The amount of meat in people’s diets has an impact on human health as well. Eaten in moderation, meat is a good source of protein and of important vitamins and nutrients such as iron, zinc and vitamins B3, B6 and B12. But a diet high in red and processed meats can lead to a host of health problems, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer:

• •

  Pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world, followed by poultry, beef and mutton.

• •

  Poultry production is the fastest growing meat sector, increasing 4.7 percent in 2010 to 98 million tons.

• •

  Worldwide, per capita meat consumption increased from 41.3 kg in 2009 to 41.9 kg in 2010. People in the developing world eat 32 kg of meat a year on average, compared to 80 kg per person in the industrial world.

• •

  Of the 880 million rural poor people living on less than $1 per day, 70 percent are partially or completely dependent on livestock for their livelihoods and food security.

• •

  Demand for livestock products will nearly double in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

• •

  Raising livestock accounts for roughly 23 percent of all global water use in agriculture, equivalent to 1.15 L of water per person per day.

• •

  Livestock account for an estimated 18 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, producing 40 percent of the world’s methane and 65 percent of the world’s nitrous oxide.

• •

  27 percent of the antibiotics used on livestock are not absorbed by the animals and are excreted in waste, posing a serious risk to public health.