World agriculture towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision - Fao

PROOF COPY
(which in our data appears as food demand for barley) has been and will continue to be a
factor in sustaining per capita consumption of coarse grains 29 . In like manner, the use of
maize for the production of sweeteners has boosted the food consumption of coarse grains in
the industrial countries, mainly in the United States of America, where HFCS has replaced a
good part of sugar, though this trend has run its course and signs are that some reversal is in
prospect 30 . In the future, a continuation of recovery in sub-Saharan Africa (already evident in
the current decade), could raise the average of the developing countries.
Aggregate demand for coarse grains will be increasingly influenced by the demand for
animal feed in developing countries: they now account for 42 percent of global feed use of
coarse grains, up from 37 percent 10 years ago and 25 percent 20 years ago. They may
account for some 56 percent of global feed use of coarse grains by 2050. Use of coarse grains
for biofuels (mostly maize, some sorghum) is to play a growing role in world demand, at least
for the next ten years, but the longer-term prospects are shrouded in uncertainty (see
Chapter 3, Annex 3.1).
As noted, the diversification of diets in the developing countries has been most visible
in the shift towards livestock products and vegetable oils. Here again there is very wide
diversity among countries as regards both the levels of consumption achieved as well as the
speed with which the transformation has been taking place. Concerning meat, several
developing countries have traditionally had high consumption per capita, comparable to the
levels of the industrial countries. They include the traditional meat exporters of Latin America
(e.g. Argentina or Uruguay), but also the occasional country with predominantly pastoral
economy, e.g. Mongolia. However, developments in these countries are not what caused the
structural change in the diets of the average of the developing countries towards more meat
consumption. If anything, they slowed it down as the per capita consumption in many of them
either remained flat or actually declined. The real force behind the structural change has been
rapid growth in consumption of livestock products in countries like China (including Hong
Kong SAR), the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Chile, Brazil and Saudi Arabia). Indeed, as
discussed in Chapter 3, the increase of meat consumption of the developing countries from 14
to 28 kg from 1979/81-2005/07 was decisively influenced by the rapid growth in China and
Brazil. Excluding them from the totals, the average of the other developing countries grew
much less over the same period, from 12 kg to only 17 kg 31 (Table 2.5). Given the uncertainty
29
World beer consumption has grown from 21 kg to 25 kg/capita in the last ten years.
30
See “High-fructose corn syrup: Sickly sweetener, Americans are losing their taste for a sugar substitute made
from maize”, Economist, 29 May 2010.
31
These data for meat consumption refer only to the traditional meats constituting the great bulk of aggregate
consumption, i.e. bovine, ovine, pig meat and poultry. Other meats (horse, camel, rabbit and game for which the
FBS provide crude estimates) are not included in the data given here. They add to the world average of 39 kg
another 3 kg. However, these other meats are significant food sources in a number of countries, e.g. they add 24
kg to the per capita meat consumption in Mongolia, an important 5-10 kg in several African (sub-Saharan)
countries which significantly increases the meat consumption from the more traditional animals. For sub-
Saharan Africa, this other meat increases the regional average from the 10.1 kg shown in Table 2.6 to 13.3 kg.
Several European countries have also significant consumption, e.g. Italy and France (5-6 kg), and an EU27
average of 5 kg added to the traditional average of 83 kg.
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