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

PROOF COPY
surrounding China’s meat statistics 32 , one may question whether a “livestock revolution” is
really taking place in developing countries.
In the future we may witness a significant slowdown in the growth of demand for meat,
as more and more countries attain medium/high levels of consumption per capita. For
example, there are currently only 18 developing countries (out of 98) with over 50 kg,
including China and Brazil which between themselves account for 56 percent of meat
consumption in the developing countries (against their share of 28 percent in the population).
Their number may rise to 28 countries by 2030 and 36 by 2050. The rising weight in world
consumption of the developing countries attaining medium/high levels together with the large
initial weight of the developed countries (in relation to their population – see Box 2.3) and the
fall in the growth rate of population will lead to world meat consumption growing at a lower
rate than in the past, e.g. 1.6 percent p.a. from 2005/07-2030 compared with 2.6 in the
comparable historical period 1980-2006 and already lower in the first 7 years of the current
decade (2.1 percent).
The prospects are slim that other large developing countries such as India will emerge
as major meat consumers, due to a continuation of low incomes for a significant part of the
population and the influence of dietary preferences favouring meat less than in other societies.
In India per capita meat consumption is currently minuscule (3.1 kg in the FBS data) and even
lower than in the past. Its consumption may grow only slowly in the short to medium term,
but the prospect of faster growth in the longer term cannot be excluded. The current study
projects India’s meat consumption (mostly poultry meat) rising to 18 kg in 2050. A recent
World Bank paper projects an exploding size of the South Asia’s middle class by 2050 – from
under 1 million at present to some 660 million (29 percent of the population) in 2050 (van der
Mensbrugghe et al., 2011: Table 5.9). Such developments can be expected to have a
significant impact on the region’s demand for livestock products but, as noted, this is a
prospect for the longer term (after 2030) of our projection period. Even so, India will still
have very low meat consumption compared with other countries.
In contrast to the projected moderate consumption of meat, India’s consumption of
milk/dairy products rose very fast, with per capita consumption doubling to 67 kg from the
levels of the early 70s. There is still scope for fast growth in the country’s consumption. For
the foreseeable future, India will play a significant role in the evolution of the world milk
sector. It now accounts for 15 percent of world production and its share may rise to 21 percent
by 2050.
In conclusion, the boost given in the past to world meat consumption by the surge in
China, pending mentioned reservations on the data, is unlikely to be replicated by other
countries in the medium term future. The major structural changes that characterized the
historical evolution of the world livestock economy, particularly in the 1990s, are likely to
continue, though in somewhat attenuated form. These changes are: the growing role of the
developing countries in the world meat sector and that of the poultry sector in world meat
production.
32 China’s meat production data are thought to overstate the growth of livestock production because the implied
consumption of meat is well above what other data (from the food consumption surveys) show (Ma et al., 2004).
If the data actually overstate China’s meat production by a considerable margin, the country’s impact on the
world meat economy and particularly the aggregates of the developing countries would have been more modest,
and its future impact on the livestock economy and the demand of cereals for feed would be larger, than
suggested here.
47