User:NewJohn/Meat industry

This is a draft: Please feel free to edit and improve on this article! So far there is just a redirect from meat industry to Livestock in the wikipedia. There are similar articles on other industries: Automotive industry, Music industry, Pharmaceutical industry, Meat packing industry, ... NewJohn (talk) 14:23, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

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The production process of livestock should not be described here but in the article intensive animal farming!

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Big business: The Top Ten of the international meat industry

The seven biggest breeders

The meat industry consists of the companies, organizations and individuals that make money by producing, transporting, processing, retailing, marketing and lobbying products made of meat in an industrial scale.

Global Trends

Intensification

There is an ongoing development towards more efficiency in the meat sector which leads to production at lower production costs. The meat industry increases efficiency in various ways: Farming of animals is increasingly intensified (more animals per stocking, animals are being raised more quickly, waste is reduced), while the number of farmers is declining. Meat producing companies are getting bigger by merging with competitors or by acquiring other firms. There are several big firms on the market which operate globally.

Market shift

While in most industrialized countries meat consumption is high, but has stagnated or even gone down (USA, Germany)...

...meat consumption in emerging national economies is on the rise.

The demand for meat in industrialized countries is stagnating on a high level or in some sectors (such as beef in the USA) even declining. The global growth in the meat industry is driven by demand in emerging national economies. China has become the largest consumer of meat globally.

Industry by sectors

Livestock production

"Eight types of livestock are used in heavy industrial production: cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, ducks and rabbits." Meat atlas p. 24

Broiler production

--> main article: Broiler#Industry_structure

Pig production

---> main article: Intensive pig farming

Breeding companies

-->Animal breeding

Breeding companies which produce high-yielding breeding lines (e.g. hybrid chickens, hybrid pigs) and dominate research and development of livestock genetics have also been getting bigger by mergers and acquisitions. Especially in the poultry sector markets are dominated by only four global players who control 97 percent of global market for poultry genetics. There are three companies that offer genetics for broilers (hybrid chickens) who have a market share of 95 percent.

meat packing industry

---> main article meat packing industry

Suppliers

• Soya suppliers

Environmental impact

--> main article: Environmental impact of meat production

References

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Material for improving this article: The FAO published a report in 2009 titled: "THE STATE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE" [1]. Some copy-paste from the chapter "2. Change in the livestock sector"[2]

• "a move from smallholder mixed farms towards large-scale specialized industrial production systems

• a shift in the geographic locus of demand and supply to the developing world;

• and an increasing emphasis on global sourcing and marketing.

• Consumption of livestock products has increased rapidly in developing countries over the past decades, particularly from the 1980s onwards. Growth in consumption of livestock products per capita has markedly outpaced growth in consumption of other major food commodity groups

• Since the early 1960s, consumption of milk per capita in the developing countries has almost doubled, meat consumption more than tripled

• since 1980 […] China, in particular, has seen per capita consumption of meat quadruple

• Brazil too has experienced a rapid expansion in the consumption of livestock products – per capita consumption of meat has almost doubled

• The Near East and North Africa has seen a 50 percent increase in consumption of meat.

• The growing demand for livestock products in a number of developing countries has been driven by economic growth, rising per capita incomes and urbanization.

• Developing countries have responded to growing demand for livestock products by rapidly increasing production

• Between 1961 and 2007, the greatest growth in meat production occurred in East and Southeast Asia, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean.

• By 2007, developing countries had overtaken developed countries in terms of production of meat

• China and Brazil show the greatest growth, especially for meat. Between 1980 and 2007, China increased its production of meat more than sixfold; today, it accounts for nearly 50 percent of meat production in developing countries and 31 percent of world production. Brazil expanded meat production by a factor of almost four and now contributes 11 percent of developing-country meat production and 7 percent of global production

• Most of the increase in meat production has been from monogastrics; poultry meat production has been the fastest-growing subsector, followed by pig meat production.

• Technological change is the single most important factor in expanding supply of cheap livestock products.

• Technological change refers to developments and innovations in all aspects of livestock production from breeding, feeding and housing to disease control, processing, transportation and marketing. Technological change in the livestock sector has mostly been the result of private research and development efforts aimed at commercial producers, in contrast with the publicly funded efforts aimed specifically.

• Little emphasis has been given to research on the public goods aspects of technology development for livestock, such as impacts on poor people or externalities related to the environment or public health.

• The application of advanced breeding and feeding technology has spurred significant productivity growth, especially in broiler and egg production and the pork and dairy sectors.

• The use of hybridization and artificial insemination has accelerated the process of genetic improvement.

• Animal-health improvements, including the increasing use of vaccines and antibiotics, have also contributed to raising roductivity.

• Growth in livestock trade has been facilitated by increasing consumption of livestock products and economic liberalization. Developments in transportation, such as long-distance cold-chain shipments (refrigerated transport) and large-scale and faster shipments, have made it possible to trade and transport animals, products and feedstuffs over long distances.

• Livestock products represent a growing proportion of agricultural exports. Their share of agricultural export value globally rose from 11 percent to 17 percent between 1961 and 2006

• Between 1980 and 2006, the volume of total meat exports increased more than threefold.

• ..."

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Further potential sources:

• "Happier Meals - RETHINKING THE GLOBAL MEAT INDUSTRY", 2005, DANIELLE NIERENBERG, WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE