Meat in the World Economy: Global Trends in Meat Production, Consumption, and Trade, 1960-2015

• In Event: 3555 - Section on the Political Economy of the World-System Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 2. Environmental Disaster, Power, and Conflict

Abstract

Global meat production and consumption have risen sharply and steadily since 1960. The potential implications of these increases are wide-ranging, threatening to worsen a variety of social issues already seen as problematic: climate change, clean water supplies, food insecurity and world hunger, consumers’ health, workers’ rights and well-being, and the treatment of animals. Despite such important potential effects, few scholars have detailed the trends in increasing global meat production and consumption. In addition, few scholars have examined the shifts in trade patterns in meat in the world economy. Similarly, recent research has also examined changes in the global diet, and the emergence of the neoliberal diet. This research has tended to emphasize the place of oils, sugars, and processed foods. Yet, meat has not been a central component of the conceptualization of this new global diet. Nonetheless, rising meat consumption should clearly be part of discussions of the changing global diet.

We examine trends in global meat production, consumption, and trade from 1960 to 2015, focusing on meat from chickens, cows, and pigs. We draw on data from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) as well as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). During this period, global per capita meat consumption increased from 20 kg/capita/year to 39 kg/capita/year. Given the substantial increase in the world’s population, this per capita increase in meat consumption means that meat production has risen even more dramatically. Along with these shifts in production and consumption, important shifts have occurred in the global meat trade, both in terms of major meat importers and exporters. Therefore, we aim to answer several questions: Which nations are the primary exporters and which are the primary importers? Which nations dominate global production and which nations are the primary consumers? In comparing chickens, pork, and beef, how concentrated are global meat markets?

Authors

• Bill Winders, Georgia Institute of Technology

• Elizabeth Ransom, Pennsylvania State University