MEAT: The past, present, and future of meat in China’s diet

1.0 Introduction The consumption of meat has impacted social systems and the environment on a global scale and is becoming increasingly problematic as production and market systems change. Livestock production requires intense inputs of environmental and economic resources including water, land, and energy. The large requirements of input also carries over to animal agriculture’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, animal agriculture makes up 18% of all global greenhouse gas emissions and consists mostly of methane this is projected to increase by 80% by 2050 (Shindell et al., 2009). Intensive use of water is also seen throughout the linear livestock sector, starting from the feed used in animal rearing to the processing of meat for retail. When virtual water use is accounted for, water extraction for meat takes up an overwhelmingly large proportion of global water allocation and subjects extra stress on the already critical resource (Lucrezia et al., 2017). The negative toll animal agriculture has on water also applies to land and relates to deforestation, pollution, biodiversity loss; for example, in Brazil, one of the largest global producers of cattle has deforested 80% of the Amazon rainforest for animal agriculture (Stoll-Kleemann & O’Riordan, 2014). Along with these environmental impacts, social demands of living standards and modernization has increased the demand of meat consumption which further perpetuates the production and supply of meat.