Thread by @NatBullard

In 2019, something happened for only the second time in six decades: global meat production declined.

In 2020, something unprecedented in six decades will happen: global meat production will decline for a second year in a row.

Let's talk peak meat
1/
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

2/ @FAO tracks production of 18 meats including camel, guinea fowl, and wild game, but only three are significant in global volume: beef, pork, and chicken; they're 302 of 340 million tons of annual production
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

3/ Pork and chicken production are growing at a greater rate than beef production. Let's look at them in relative terms. The top three are remarkably steady for six decades (85 to 88% of total) bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

4/ Beef is clearly declining as a percentage of total meat production, from 39% in 1961 to only 20% in 2018. Pork is exactly the same now as it was in 1961: 35%. Chicken is all the growth, from 11% to 34% of total meat production. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

5/ Let's look at it per capita - a behavioral peak, if you will. In this sense, beef peaked in the late 1970s! Pork peaked in 2015. Chicken hasn't peaked yet. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

6/ This all matters for the climate.
Emissions from beef production are 10x those of pork or chicken. Beef emissions also aren’t just from the farm itself; they’re also from land use change, such as deforestation to make space for grazing. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

7/ Agriculture, forestry, and other land use is 18.5% of global GHG emissions. Beef uses lots of land and emits a lot from the land it uses. But by any number of measures, beef consumption looks very near its peak.

Read here for more:
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… /end