Chicken/poultry | TableDebates

Record profits for Cargill based on increasing meat demand

The world’s largest agricultural commodities supplier, Cargill, obtained its highest profit in six years based on an increasing demand for meat. Animal nutrition and protein were the largest contributor to quarterly earnings for the company.

Photo: Sarah, A Tasty Snack, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0 generic.

Could consumption of insects, cultured meat or imitation meat reduce global agricultural land use?

This paper compares stylised, hypothetical dietary scenarios to assess the potential for reducing agricultural land requirements. It suggests that a combination of smaller shifts in consumer diet behaviour – such as reducing beef consumption by replacing with chicken, introducing insects into mainstream diets and reducing consumer waste – could reduce agricultural land requirements.

Photo: Erik Edgren, taro burger, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0 generic.

How Do Dietary Choices Influence the Energy-System Cost of Stabilizing the Climate?

In this paper, using three scenarios for food demand, the researchers model and highlight the indirect relationship between greenhouse gas (GHG) emission abatement within the food supply system and the energy system, globally.

Photo: Jonathan Kos-Read, Meat, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0

Summary of consumption changes of meat and dairy products in China over 22 years

This short article runs through consumption data on meat and dairy products in China in urban and rural areas in 1990, 2002 and 2012. It uses data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China and the National Nutrition Survey.

Greenhouse gas emissions from pig and poultry production sectors in China from 1960 to 2010

Meat consumption is increasing, especially in the emerging economies. The Chinese government has an increasing interest in making steps towards sustainable livestock production, and the more GHG (greenhouse gas) “efficient” pork and poultry industries have seen substantial progress towards sustainability in the recent past.

Foodsource

Focus: the difficult livestock issue

A central topic of most debates on sustainable food systems is the complex role of livestock, meat and dairy. This is due to their connection to many issues of moral and practical concern related to food systems; affecting both humans and the environment, and animal's own interests. The picture is complex. And because different stakeholders bring different worldviews and perspectives, people often disagree about the appropriate role of livestock, meat, and dairy, in sustainable food systems. Yet demand for meat and dairy consumption is expected to grow considerably, and as a result, debates around livestock-related issues are becoming increasingly prominent. Understanding these helps to provide a broader understanding of food systems more generally.

Photo: USDA, pigs, Flickr, creative commons licence 2.0

Antibiotic resistance is also a food and climate issue

In this blog David McCoy, director of Medact, argues that UK farmers and government should work hard to reduce on-farm antibiotic use. With evidence building that antimicrobial resistance in farm animals can be transferred across to humans, the issue is becoming increasingly urgent.

Photo: Stephen Luke, farm, Flickr, creative commons licence 2.0

The effects of naming and shaming campaigns: the case of the Dutch factory farmed chicken

One Dutch animal rights NGO and a growing public antipathy to the extremes of industrial animal farming have caused several major supermarkets in the Netherlands to stop selling meat from fast-growing chickens.

OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2016-2025

According to the latest joint OECD-FAO report Food Outlook which analyses global food markets, the coming decade will likely see an end to a period of high agricultural prices, although prices are expected to rise for livestock relative to those for crops.