7 6 July 2016
INTERNATIONAL
C
hina is going to reduce its per capita meat
consumption by half to help meets its com-
mitments under the Paris deal on climate
change. That’s how the Guardian newspaper
reported recently in a lengthy article that
quoted from a Chinese government nutrition guideline
published by the National Health and Family Planning
Commission which recommended that Chinese people
should restrict daily meat intake to 40-75g per day. That
compares to a 50-75g recommendation issued by the
same body in 2007.
The Guardian article, while quoting the 40g to 75g
recommendation but not the 2007 figures, suggested
“the Chinese government has outlined a plan to reduce
its citizens’ meat consumption by 50%, in a move that
climate campaigners hope will provide major heft in the
effort to avoid runaway global warming”. Should the
new guidelines be followed, it speculated, “carbon
dioxide equivalent emissions
from China’s livestock industry
would be reduced by 1bn tonnes
by 2030, from a projected 1.8bn
tonnes in that year”.
Sounds great, but where does
the 50% reduction comes from?
The Guardian quotes a Chinese
official, Li Junfeng, director gen-
eral of China’s National Center on
Climate Change Strategy and
International Cooperation (also
China’s head negotiator in Paris)
as saying: “Through this kind of
lifestyle change, it is expected that the livestock indus-
try will transform and carbon emissions will be
reduced’.
Really? A senior official like Mr Li should know his col-
leagues are pouring huge government resources into
increasing China’s consumption and production of
meat. An elite of enormous state-backed (and some
state-owned) firms, known as ‘dragon heads’, has been
consolidating China’s livestock industry along the lines
of their US, European and Brazilian counterparts.
Partly driven by government desire to improve food
safety and food security, and reflecting the US model,
‘consolidation’ is the watchword of government policy
for the meat industry, with ever-larger farms contracted
to or owned by meat companies.
One of these dragon heads – a company called the
Shuanghui Group owns Smithfield Foods, the biggest
pork processor in the US. Not surprisingly, American-
style pig meat products like barbecued pork are now
appearing on Chinese supermarket shelves and Shuan-
ghui executives and butcher crews fly back and forth
between Zhengzhou and Virginia for training.
Government-paid experts, principal among them the
China Animal Agriculture Administration (CAAA), a gov-
ernment-funded body charged with improving breeding
locally, are cheerleading the industry. The CAAA has
been embraced, indeed clutched, by international pro-
cessing, breeding, feed and veterinary medicine
companies which eagerly provide free advice and over-
seas trips to potential Chinese customers.
The average Chinese ate 3.7 kg of beef last year but
that figure should rise further says Xu Shang Zhong,
head of the China Beef Cattle Association. He cites
“bottlenecks” in breeding programmes and a “lack of
scale” among the challenges.
Meat consumption has jumped alongside rising
incomes in China where the term “meat eater” has long
been used to describe the wealthy. At 47.1 kg per person
China’s average per capita meat consumption is half the
equivalent figure in the US but is already reaching levels
seen in wealthier nations like Japan (35.5 kg) per capita,
according to the Organization for Economic Coopera-
China not in hand
A recent Guardian article was naïve
about China's aspiration to reduce its
climate-damaging meat production
and consumption
A senior official like
Mr Li should know his
colleagues are pouring
huge government
resources into
increasing China’s
consumption and
production of meat
by Mark Godfrey
July 2016 7 7
tion and Development (OECD).
China eats more (calorie-rich) pork than its neigh-
bours - 32 kg compared to 24.3kg in Korea and 14.9kg
in Japan. An average Chinese consumed 11.4 kg of
chicken compared to 13.6 kg in Japan.
China’s appetite for meat is already causing enor-
mous, visible environmental cost locally. Tackling this
damage has had little to do with China’s climate change
official Li Junfeng and more to do with filthy drinking
water. The expansion of China’s pig herd over the past
decade in particular happened with little thought for
the water supplies of towns and villages in provinces
like Guangdong, Hunan, Shandong and Sichuan.
The past year has seen a surge in reporting by local
media of illegal pig farms. National government is forc-
ing the creation of a national registry of water pollution
which requires data from local officials. Hence the dash
to shut down the worst polluters.
Over-pollution at home however is also prompting
firms to export the problem in order to continue to cash
in on rising Chinese meat consumption. Another Chi-
nese ‘dragon head’, the Shanghai-based Shanghai
Maling Aquarius Co is in the process of buying 50% of
New Zealand’s biggest meat processor, Silver Fern
Farms. A lack of experience in the beef industry hasn’t
deterred other Chinese investors from getting in on
what’s seen as a high-margin business – certainly com-
pared to over-capacity heavy industries like coal and
steel. The automotive-focused Tianma Bearing Co pur-
chased Wollogorang Ranch in Australia for AUS$47m
while other deals include the purchase of the Bindaree
Beef group for AUS$140 million by Chinese pork pro-
cessor Shandong Delisi.
China’s massive animal feed producer New Hope
Group recently told Chinese media the company would
invest RMB 17BN overseas up to 2021.
Chinese is inevitably suffering an explosion in life-
style diseases like diabetes among young and wealthy
Chinese in particular, from eating more meat and l west-
ern diets.
While its meat companies acquire peers around the
world China has no intention of reducing its meat con-
sumption by 50%, whatever the well-meaning Guardian
thinks.
China's production of meat is increasing

Loading

© 2015 Village Magazine

Back to Top