85 billion hens are used to explain the world meat prediction.
Since the modern chicken business was founded a century ago, chicken has surpassed beef and pork as the most consumed meat worldwide. That trend is anticipated to quickly accelerate in the coming decade, according to a report released last month by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and it will have significant effects on climate change, animal welfare, and economic development.
The analysis estimates that by 2032, the astonishing 74 billion hens raised and slaughtered annually by humanity would climb to 85 billion, a 15% increase. In contrast, the quantity of pigs and beef cattle raised for meat will rise to 365 million and 1.5 billion by 2032.
Only 16 percent of the world’s population and 33 percent of its meat consumption are found in high-income countries. In contrast, meat consumption is rising quickly in middle-income regions like much of Asia and Latin America while remaining stagnant in high-income nations and predicted to fall in Europe over the next ten years.
Put it down to what economists refer to as Bennett’s Law, which states that when people rise out of poverty, they tend to go from diets that are primarily plant-based and low in emissions but rich in grains and starches to diets that are more diverse and high in emissions but high in meat and dairy as well as fruits and vegetables. The number of chickens in the globe is predicted to increase to unimaginable levels as hundreds of millions more individuals join the global middle class.
Why chicken is so popular worldwide
Simple economics can partially account for the global switch from red to white meat: Compared to pigs and cattle, chickens are substantially less expensive to keep because they convert feed more effectively into meat. People are turning to less expensive meats due to inflation and the stagnation of global wages.
Governments, as well as consumers, are considering environmental and public health issues. Although the production of chicken and fish is extremely harmful to the environment, it leaves a significantly less carbon footprint than that of red meat, which is why people generally believe that they are healthier than pork and beef.
It all adds up to a world where chickens rule; for every person on Earth, more than nine are killed annually. Due to their small size, 100 chickens are required to produce the same amount of meat as one cow.
Some archaeologists think that because we consume so much chicken, the bones of our present era will be defined by it.
Future civilizations will be able to learn about our ingenuity in controlling nature to create ever-increasing amounts of meat, our inability to eat it within the limits of the planet, and our callous disregard for the welfare of animals from the trillions of chicken bones we’ll leave behind.
The treatment we gave the chicken
The US poultry business has created Frankenchickens out of chickens in an effort to increase the amount of meat on tables.
Chickens of today have been developed to grow enormously quickly and to a market weight that is five times larger than that of earlier breeds in just six to seven weeks. Animal activists have referred to chickens as “prisoners in their own bodies” as a result of a variety of health and welfare issues that have been caused.
What a meat-centric food system has taught us
It makes sense that governments of low- and middle-income nations would want to match Western levels of animal product consumption after witnessing high-income countries eat so much meat during the past 50 years. However, we already know what comes along with cheap, plentiful meat and dairy: massive deforestation, loss of biodiversity, chronic diseases of affluence, accelerated climate change, increased pandemic risk, and massive animal suffering.
If the OECD and FAO are correct, the industrial meat machine will continue to produce an ever-increasing amount of meat at the very time that climate experts are advising us to drastically reduce animal production in order to make the earth habitable.
Environmental, Indigenous, and animal protection organizations are fighting against the growth of industrial farming in the Global South. This conflict is arguably at its most fierce in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, where Indigenous land is forcibly taken for cattle grazing and animal feed planting, and Ecuador, where enormous pig and poultry farms have been supported by international organizations like the World Bank.
Only those living in low- and middle-income nations may choose the appropriate amount of intensification in meat production to combine their needs for a sufficient food supply with environmental, public health, and animal welfare issues. However, the 100-year experiment in American-style factory cultivation has turned out to be an ethical and environmental catastrophe that we are only now realizing. Hopefully, it is a lesson that the rest of the world can benefit from.