TOP FACTS
FOOD SYSTEM TRENDS
Here is a list of what we consider the most credible figures, statistics, and trends to use based on the entire body of evidence in our database.
Think we should update this or do you have a different interpretation than us? Please contact us directly, we're always open to discussing the evidence:
POPULATION
While the human population growth rate has fallen to 1.05%/year, livestock population growth rate has risen to 2.4%/year (Monbiot 2021)
Land Animals
In the past 50 years:
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The number of cattle on Earth has risen by ~15% (Cook, 2024)
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The number of pigs has doubled
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The number of chickens has increased five-fold (Beck et al., 2016)
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Biomass of poultry globally is 3 times that of all wild bird species (Bennett et al., 2018)
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Only 4% of mammals (by weight) are now wild (Bar-on, Phillips, & Milo, 2018)
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Globally, populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish decreased by an average of 68% between 1970 and 2016; in tropical central and South America, animal populations fell by 94% over this period. The global biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82% since prehistoric times (IPBES, 2019)
Marine Life
1950 = 20 million tonnes of fish extracted from the ocean
2016 = 140 million tonnes of fish harvested from the ocean / + 60 million tonnes from aquaculture (UN FAO)
In 2019, an estimated 78–171 billion fish were farmed globally, surpassing the 80 billion land animals raised for food (Mood et al., 2023). This figure excludes fish that die during rearing or aren't used for food, and it's expected to rise as aquaculture continues to grow.
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This works out to 0.79-2.3 trillion fish per year (2007-2016) or 25,000-75,000 fish per second! (FAO, 2022)
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Roughly half of these fish (in numbers) are turned into fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO) (Mood & Brooke, 2024).
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Additional species include 5.6 million tonnes of crustaceans, 5.9 million tonnes of molluscs, and 503,000 tonnes of other animals caught for food (FAO 2022).
PRODUCTION
Globally, an estimated 37% of harvested major crops is used for domestic food crops - the remainder goes to exports, processing, industry or other uses. (Manduna, 2024)
~37% of global crop calories are used as animal feed rather than direct human consumption. (Ray et al., 2022)
Over 70% of the world’s population is fed by small-scale producers and workers in ‘peasant food webs’, despite them accounting for less than 1/3 of agricultural land and resources (IPES, 2024)
While the human population growth rate has fallen to 1.05%/year, livestock population growth rate has risen to 2.4%/year (Monbiot 2021)
In the past 50 years:
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The number of cattle on Earth has risen by ~15% (Cook, 2024)
-
The number of pigs has doubled
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The number of chickens has increased five-fold (Beck et al., 2016)
Ten major global crops (barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugar cane and wheat) account for ~83% of all harvested food calories and ~63% of global harvested areas. These most popular crops have many competing uses:
Since 1960 climate change has slowed productivity growth by 21% globally, and by as much as 40% in parts of Africa and other tropical zones, pushing the world more quickly toward a “tipping point” where climate change impacts will offset all productivity growth. (Gautam et al. 2022)
CONSUMPTION
Meat Consumption
Growth in global consumption of meat proteins over the next decade is projected to increase by 14% by 2030 compared to the base period average of 2018-2020, driven largely by income and population growth. Poultry meat is expected to represent 41% of all the protein from meat sources in 2030, a 2% increase. Global shares of other meat products: beef (20%), pigmeat (34%), and sheep meat (5%) (OECD-FAO, 2021)
via FT
Plant-Based Consumption
In 2023, 42% of U.S. consumers said they were trying to reduce their meat consumption, while plant-based meat alternatives grew to 1.1% of total retail food sales. Plant-based foods made up 1.1% of total retail food and beverage dollar sales in 2023. 95% of households that bought plant-based meat and seafood in 2023 also bought animal-based meat. (GFI, 2023)
Maize, rice and wheat together provide the largest number of calories and nutrients to humans, accounting for as much as 50% of the population’s diet in some regions.
OVERALL STATEMENTS
“Global food production is the single largest human pressure on Earth, threatening local ecosystems, driving a sixth mass extinction of species, and impacting the stability of the entire Earth system.” (Loken, 2020)
Scientist and Project Drawdown’s leader Dr. Jonathan Foley states that “nothing else we do has come close to how food, agriculture, and land use are causing global environmental harm. Without major changes, our food system will continue to push Earth well beyond its planetary boundaries.” (Loken, 2020)
The plant-predominant Planetary Health Diet could reduce enough emissions to keep us below 1.5 degrees of warming. This diet, for the US, involved a reduction of beef, lamb and pork by 84%, eggs by 63%, poultry by 57%, and dairy by 31%. However, this is assuming that everyone will adhere to the diet, we also eliminate fossil fuel use entirely, and it only gets us to a 50% chance at staying below 1.5 degrees of warming. Considering most nations can’t even promise to reduce half the emissions we need, some might conclude changing our diets even more may be prudent. A completely plant based diet could get us to a 85% chance at staying below 1.5 degrees.