© 2010 G. M. B. Akash /Panos


Gabtoli, the biggest cattle market in Dhaka, Bangladesh.


grant and IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Siwa Msangi have calculated that cutting per capita meat consumption in high-income countries to 50 percent below baseline levels by 2030 would reduce world meat prices by 12–22 percent and boost meat consumption in developing countries by more than 7 percent. Malnutrition among children under age five across the developing world would be reduced by about 700,000 cases.


If meat consumption were also cut in half in China and Brazil, where demand is rising sharply, the effect would more than double. Meat prices would be reduced from 33 to 59 percent, and meat consumption would increase in Africa and India by nearly 50 percent. More than 2 million cases of child malnutrition would be avoided—an encouraging number, but only


a dent in the more than 130 million cases of child malnutrition that are projected. Rosegrant points out that livestock products and maize would become more affordable in the global market, but consumers in developing countries would still rely mainly on rice and wheat, whose prices would be little changed. “People some- times assume that every grain not fed to animals goes to humans,” says Rosegrant. “It doesn’t work that way.” So the biggest beneficiaries of a cut in meat consumption in rich countries may be the people who live in those countries, who could see health and environmental benefits.


A serious decline in consumption will not hap- pen without vigorous intervention, given the strong preference people show for eating more meat as incomes rise. “Te slowdown in demand


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