The organization that establishes China’s dietary guidelines wants to curb the country’s insatiable appetite for meat.
Average per capita meat consumption has increased six-fold since 1978 and shows no signs of slowing down. It is the primary reason global investors are long-term bullish about agriculture.
But China is concerned about the mounting health and environmental problems associated with eating meat and raising livestock.
That is why the Chinese Nutrition Society has teamed up with WildAid’s 5 To Do Today, a Chinese campaign working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to decrease the nation’s meat consumption by 50 percent.
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“Much evidence has shown that long-term overconsumption of meat, especially processed meat, will impose adverse effects on our body affecting our health in the long run,” Yang Yuexin, president of the Chinese Nutrition Society, said last year in a news release announcing the initiative.
China consumes half of the world’s pork and 28 percent of total global meat production.
Average per capita meat consumption in China is 63 kilograms per year and is expected to rise 50 percent by 2030 if there is no intervention.
New dietary guidelines published by the Chinese Nutrition Society call for people to consume 14.6 to 27.4 kg of meat per year, which at the high end is less than half of what they currently consume.
China accounts for about two-thirds of global soybean imports. The seed is crushed and the meal is fed to pigs and other animals. China is home to about half of the world’s total pig population.
Any sizable reduction in China’s hog herd would have big repercussions for soybean and canola prices.
Paul Burke, north Asia country director for the U.S. Soybean Export Council, doesn’t believe the Chinese Nutrition Society will accomplish its objective. In fact, he is convinced meat consumption and consequently soybean sales will continue to rise through 2030.
That is because the Chinese government has a goal of moving 300 million people from rural areas to urban centres, where they will be earning more money and eating more meat.
Research shows the urban transplants tend to increase their consumption of animal protein and vegetable oil by 30 percent.
Burke said the new dietary guidelines may influence some educated consumers but many will ignore them.
What is a potential threat to feed suppliers is China’s initiatives to get serious about the environment. As well, there are serious discussions taking place at various think-tanks about radically reducing Chinese animal production and instead relying on imports.
“But so far I have not seen any indication that those policy considerations are gaining any traction. They might in the future,” he said.
If China’s new dietary guidelines were adhered to, it would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 1.5 percent.
Ron Davidson, director of government and media relations with the Canadian Meat Council, doesn’t know what to make of China’s stance on meat consumption.
“We don’t know how this is all going to play out,” he said.
“To what extent are the consumers going to actually reduce consumption because of what the government wants them to do?”
China is Canada’s third largest pork market behind the United States and Japan. It purchased $581 million worth of Canadian pork in 2016, up from $59 million in 2010.
“It has been a huge growth market,” said Davidson.
“If there was a decline in total consumption that certainly wouldn’t be advantageous to us.”
But he noted that it can be difficult to change people’s eating habits through government policy.
A good case in point is China’s previous dietary guidelines published in 2007 that called for per capita meat consumption in the range of 18.3 to 36.5 kg per year but people are eating 63 per year.
