Meat dossier

Food security of meat consumption

The global definition of food security is: Food security exists when all people, at
all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and
nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an
active and healthy life. (FAO) Food security depends on the Availability, Access,
Utilization and stability of food. These factors are all affected by the growing
world population, urbanization and diet change, because of the economic growth
of developing countries, for example in Saharan Africa and in south-east Asia
Africa and Asia don´t have a lot of meat consumption, because meat is a relative
expensive product. However, the world population is increasing very fast as well
as the global welfare, so it is more and more available in the future.

The world population is projected to grow to approximately 9.2 billion by 2050,

an increase of over 30% compared to the present. Urbanization will continue at
an accelerated pace, and about 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban
(compared to 49 percent today). Income levels will be many multiples of what
they are now. In order to feed this larger, more urban and richer population,
food production must increase by 70 percent and annual meat production will
need to rise by over 200 million tonnes to reach 470 million tonnes. (FAO) The
spread of prosperity across the world, especially in China and India, is driving an
increased demand for meat boosting pressure to grow more corn and soybeans
to feed more cattle, pigs, and chickens. If these trends continue, the double
whammy of population growth and richer diets will require us to roughly double
the 1.6 billion ha of cropland we already grow by 2050 (INTERNATIONAL
FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, 2010). the production of meat has a
lot of influence on the climate change in comparison with other products. Animals
need a lot of feed: for every 2 kilograms of meat, you need 10 kilograms of feed
and it also costs a lot of water land and energy. Because we need more soy
crops for a larger production of meat. This results in deforestation in countries
like Argentina and Brazil. The use of fertilizer for growing crops is also very bad
for climate change, because of the greenhouse gasses. (voedingscentrum)

From all this cropland only 55 percent of the world’s crop calories feed people
directly; the rest are fed to livestock (about 36 percent) Though many of us
consume meat from animals raised on feedlots, only a fraction of the calories in
feed given to livestock make their way into the meat. For every 100 calories of
grain we feed animals, 12 of chicken, 10 of pork, or 3 of beef. Finding more
efficient ways to grow meat and shifting to less meat-intensive diets—even just
switching from grain-fed beef to meats like chicken, pork, or pasture-raised
beef—could free up substantial amounts of food across the world. Because
people in developing countries are unlikely to eat less meat in the near future,
given their newfound prosperity, we can first focus on countries that already
have meat-rich diets.(nationalgeographic) Globally, the meat availability is far
from equal. This isn’t good for the food security worldwide, because people don’t
get the important compounds, for example animal proteins and vitamins.
However, the global welfare is growing and our diets will change over the next
50 years, so everyone get access to good meat in the future.