Throughout the world the meat production has tripled over the last four decades and increased by 20% in the last 10 years. People believe by 2050 twice as much meat will be produce, and in total there will be more than 465 million tons. Here we have a chart that shows meat consumption has increased from 1909 to 2012.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5443
Why has the demand of meat increased?
Has our population has a whole continues to grow so does our demand for meat. Rising food prices are pushing consumers to choose cheaper cuts of meat. Also people have found out by feeding hungry countries with meat reduces the hunger and malnutrition in poorer nations.
According to Danielle Nierenberg, director of the institute’s Nourishing the Planet project and co-author of the report on farm animal populations believes, “Urbanization and rising incomes particularly in developing and emerging countries. China, Brazil, India – they’ve all seen their middle class or consumer class rise over the last 30 years. And what tends to happen when people have a little bit more money to spend is they spend it on higher quality food. They tend to buy more milk or cheese or meat."
How is our high demand for meat being supplied?
Our little farms can no longer keep up with our high demand. They have been replaced with these factory farms or CAFOs, concentrated animal feed operations. Worldwide, some 56 billion animals are raised and slaughtered for food each year.These facilities rely on commercial breeds of livestock, usually pigs and chickens, that have been bred to gain weight quickly on high-protein feeds. Below is an photo of what some of our farms look like today.
Who are the major consumers?
There aren't any specific consumers because seems like nearly everyone meats some kind of meat. Here is a chart that shows the top countries of meat eaters.
This is really sad but true, people should be more considerant of living animals of how they get killed... I really learn a lot about the meat consumption and the issue of animals being treated that made me think of becoming a vegeterian.!
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