Food is life! Food has reshaped our planet as we know it. Today, whole economies and even national security depend on it. Yet the current agricultural system is unsustainable. Agriculture already accounts for most of our water consumption (~70%) and a high percentage of our land use (~40%), as well as the bulk of human-generated CO2 emissions (~22%).
We’re on track to set a new record for global meat consumption. Globally, we consumed around 328 million tons of meat in 2020, and will reach 455 million by 2050.
By 2050, we will consume 40% more meat than today and that’s a problem because industrial meat production systems put immense pressure on earth’s ecosystems.
Meat consumption (present, future)
Undisputed evidence has shown that human influence on climate change is real, and that there is a direct correlation between population and CO2 emissions growth. By 2050, the UN predicts that global population – which is around ~7.9 billion as of March 2022 – will reach about 10 billion.
Driver #1: Increase in global population
That’s an additional ~2 billion mouths to feed, which will require our food production to increase by an extra 60%. It also means that over the next 10 years or so, roughly 1 billion people will enter the middle class, which will lead to more protein consumption.
Driver #2: Per capital meat consumption
Meat consumption shows no sign of slowing down. More people means more mouths to feed. More mouths to feed means that protein consumption will increase. As 95% of our diet’s protein consumption comes from animal protein, more animal protein will need to be produced given the rise in population. By 2050, the global population will consume ~450 million tons of meat, an increase of ~40% compared to ~340 million tons today. The consequence of rising global population and population of countries in Asia and Latin America changing income brackets will drive the demand for meat much higher than today.