The End of Meat Consumption
By Raquel de Oliveira Barra

Over the past two decades, food demand grew consistently with the growth of population. So did the production of food, leading to a continuous decline in global prices. But since 2004, the demand started to overcome the food production increase, and prices have been rising ever since.

The situation grew to unprecedented levels in the international grain markets, resulting in panic, volatility, and speculation. At the same time, meat producers were pushed to produce more, faster and cheaper to address the increasing demand.

Researchers see a collision ahead between an increasing population demanding high-quality food, and the resources available. This can result in incentives for producers to increase quantities by lowering the food quality, deriving in malnutrition and diseases.

Behind cheap meat
On average, it takes 3kg of grain and 16.000 liters of water to produce 1kg of meat. In addition to that, currently 33% of the cropland area is used for meat production. Therefore, a growing demand for meat results on the need to allocate more grain, water and land resources to produce it. Or maybe not? Over the last decades we have witnessed an increase in the development and use of artificial or waste-based feed products, genetic engineering, and chemical additives to produce more and faster.

While “industrial” livestock production supports the rising meat consumption on a world scale, it brings in parallel an increase in animal-related diseases with potential to cause human epidemics. The bovine spongiform encephalopathy, SARS, and the recent H1N1 are examples. These and other diseases can be originated from artificial feed, high animal densities, low genetic diversity, or chemical exposure, among others.

As the global demand for meat continues to rise, researchers believe that the risk of new and deadly epidemics is imminent, with the potential to force globally the reduction or even elimination of the consumption of certain types of meat.

The globalization of the risk
Today, the trade of meat allows global market access to this commodity. However, it brings along the risk that epidemics will also become global in the event of an outbreak. Countries are constantly increasing the meat quality controls in place, but standards are far from being homogeneous.

In addition to that, factors such as poverty, natural disasters, or the lack of sanitary control could make it a risk for travellers going to certain countries to even consume meat at local restaurants.

In developing countries, the risk is even higher since new diseases would appear on top of existing ones that affect people and livestock. Such countries often lack both the means and the incentives to palliate the effects of livestock epidemics.

Poultry (Figure 1) and pig meat exports lead the trend with an increase of 520 percent and 207 percent over the past twenty years, and meat trade is expected to continue increasing over time, making effective global quality controls necessary.

Figure 1. Export of poultry meat from the United States of America and Brazil.
Source: EMPRES Bulletin No. 43, FAO, Rome, 2014
Are we headed into forced “vegetarianism”?
Choice of food – where choice exists – is a complex decision. It is not easy to change a person’s food choice habits or his ability to pay for it. But much can be done to prevent a meat-related health disaster from happening, starting by the feed sources. Finding a sustainable energy source that does not damage the livestock health is crucial. That, in combination with the re-introduction of more natural and less industrialized breeding environments can go a long way in matters of prevention.

Governments also need to do their part. By guaranteeing the quality of the meat available for internal consumption and exports, as well as restricting the imports from countries that don’t is the only way to prevent animal-originated epidemics in a globalized world.

This poses a major challenge, since such measures are expensive and could make the price of meat increase even further. But that is still better than not being able to consume it at all. Unfortunately, it seems as if reaching a crisis is necessary before action is demanded.

(GRID Arendal, 2014) (Vidal, 2012) (United Nations) (Weis, 2013) (Tattershall, 2014) (Dimick, 2014) (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2014)