Blowing Water | Don’t blame China’s appetite for meat alone as we all have an equal responsibility to save the planet
- An article in The Economist says China’s growing hunger for red meat threatens Latin American forests and Arctic ice caps
- But despite China’s 1.4 billion population, its meat consumption per capita was 61.05kg compared to 115.13kg of the US, according to a UN report in 2013
A recent article in The Economist titled “The planet needs China to curb its appetite for meat” is only partly true, as it is not as simple as giving up meat altogether. Perhaps more suitably, we all need to curb our appetite for meat.
Most people will agree that a reduction in meat consumption will help reduce the man-made impact on the environment, but this should not be the sole responsibility of one country.
No doubt China has an enormous appetite for meat, especially pork. Pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world, followed by poultry, beef and mutton.
China leads the world in pork consumption. The average Chinese person consumes nearly 40kg of the meat annually. As a result, China accounts for half of the world’s pork consumption.
But sadly as the African swine fever outbreak has wiped out hundreds of millions of pigs in China and has pushed up its prices by as much as 70 per cent, many Chinese in rural areas have turned to dogs and rabbits as substitute meat.
African swine fever is deadly to pigs but harmless to people.