Ritchie et al., 2017
Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2017) - "Meat and Dairy Production". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production' [Online Resource]
Summary
- The world now produces more than three times the quantity of meat as it did fifty years ago. In 2018, production was around 340 million tonnes.
- Pig meat is the most popular meat globally, but the production of poultry is increasing most rapidly.
- 80 billion animals are slaughtered each year for meat.
- The average person in the world consumed around 43 kilograms of meat in 2014. This ranges from over 100kg in the US and Australia to only 5kg in India.
- Meat consumption increases as the world is getting richer.
- The world now produces around 800 million tonnes of milk each year – more than double the amount fifty years ago.
- Richer countries tend to consume more milk per person.
- The amount of meat produced for a given animal varies significantly across the world based on production systems.
- Livestock production has large environmental impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use. Beef and lamb have much larger environmental impact than pigmeat and poultry.