Large-scale meat production and consumption are harming human health and the environment in wealthy
countries. But in poor countries, raising livestock boosts wealth and nutrition. How much meat is enough?
Jennifer Weeks
½ With demand for meat in de- veloping coun- tries increasing at a staggering rate, the world’s population of farm animals nearly tripled be- tween 1970 and 2010.
L
ate last April the US Department of Agriculture made a surprising predic- tion. India—where cows are venerated and legally protected from slaughter,
and vegetarianism dates back thousands of years—was about to become the world’s leading beef exporter. (Actually, India exports water buffalo, which is leaner than conventional beef and sells at a lower price.) Te USDA projected that in 2012 India would ship 1.5 million tons of water buffalo meat, prepared following halal guidelines, to price-conscious consumers in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
India’s new prominence as a beef exporter demonstrates the popularity of meat and the globalization of the meat industry. Worldwide meat production has tripled over the past 50 years. Demand is growing sharply today, driven by income growth and urbanization in develop- ing countries. In 2010 the world supported more than 26 billion farm animals, up from 9 billion in 1970.
Meat production and consumption raise complex questions about health, wealth, and sus-
tainability. Moderate amounts of meat, eggs, and milk can be valuable elements of a healthy diet, but today consumers in wealthy countries are compromising their health by eating too many animal products, while many people in poor countries are undersupplied. Raising livestock is an essential income strategy in many developing regions, but small-scale livestock operations are inefficient and provide low yields for their own- ers. Concentrated production methods increase yields per animal but also magnify harmful impacts, including transmission of zoonotic diseases. And moving animals off pastureland to raise them on grain intensifies food–feed trade-offs.
Te impacts of raising and eating meat cut across multiple fields, including nutrition, public health, agriculture, and environmental regulation, and no single strategy is universally relevant. “It’s important to differentiate between types of livestock, production methods, and people’s needs depending on their positions,” says IFPRI’s John McDermott, director of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.
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