Meat is NOT a vegetable, but consists of warm-blooded animals that have been slaughtered or hunted.1)
While until about the Neolithic Age, which is defined as the transition from hunter-gatherer to herder and farmer cultures, humans traditionally obtained their meat from hunting wild animals, today's animal food production is based on the three pillars of animal breeding, animal nutrition and animal husbandry.2a) However, the development of industrial mass production was only made possible by the domestication of farm animals such as sheep, goats, pigs and cattle, which is thought to have originated around 9,000 years ago in the Near East (today: Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Eastern Turkey, Iran, Iraq).2b) Initially, people kept goats and sheep there because they provided milk and wool. It was only about 1,000 years later that pigs were domesticated, and cattle even later than that.3)
Unbelievable!
The chicken was only domesticated by humans in East Asia (India, China and Indonesia) about 4,500 years ago.2b)
Despite the broad and conflicting discussions in industrialised countries, meat makes an important contribution to feeding people in many regions of the world. In addition to high-quality proteins with essential amino acids and a high biological value*, animal-based foods contain important minerals such as iron and zinc, as well as many vitamins. Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is only found in relevant quantities in animal products (such as meat, fish, eggs, milk & dairy products and seafood) and cannot be synthesised by humans. This means that we have to ingest this vitamin with our food because our body needs it for various metabolic processes such as blood formation, cell division, maturation and regeneration of nerve cells, etc.
In 2022, a total of approx. 364.7 million tonnes of meat (slaughter weight) was processed into food worldwide. In terms of quantity, poultry meat, at around 142.7 million tonnes and thus around 39%, had the largest share of total production, followed by pork at around 114.5 million tonnes (31.4%) and beef at 59.3 million tonnes (16.3%).4)
In 2020, the average global per capita consumption of meat and poultry was 16.4 kg of poultry (chicken, duck, goose, guinea fowl, turkey), 14.6 kg of pork, 9.1 kg of beef and 2.7 kg of sheep, goat and other animal species. Overall, the average per capita consumption was therefore around 42.8 kg of meat and poultry, although the quantities vary considerably between countries, partly due to religious, ethical and economic considerations. For example, the average per capita consumption of pork was only 0.2 kg in India and 44.0 kg in Germany. And while a mere 4.5 kg of meat per capita was consumed in India in 2020, people in the United States consumed a whopping 128.6 kg of meat per person on average.5) This enormous demand for meat can only be met by intensive livestock farming and the industrial production of animal-based foods.
However, there are still many people around the world who live from traditional forms of settled or semi-settled animal production, often in combination with traditional plant production. Today, this so-called agropastoralism is most commonly found in tropical open landscapes where annual rainfall allows for largely stationary grazing. Agropastoralism refers to subsistence-oriented, traditional forms of agriculture in which crop farming (agro from the Latin ager = field) is combined with livestock farming on natural pastures (pastoralism from the Latin pastor = shepherd).6)
Agropastoralism is also widespread in arid areas of Africa (e.g. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda). However, in order for this to be possible at all in Africa's dry savannah landscapes, crop farming either takes place in an oasis because of the necessary irrigation, or people work with qanat systems, for example. A qanat is a traditional form of freshwater transport used to tap drinking and process water in desert areas from higher-lying groundwater reservoirs. In contrast to pure pastoralists or herder nomads, who do not engage in permanent soil cultivation, agropastoralists remain with their cattle for longer periods in order to cultivate their fields.6)7)
Peculiar:
There are over 5,000 species of mammal and over 10,000 species of bird on Earth, but only about 20 mammal and 10 bird species are used to any significant extent economically.2b)
For pastoralists, seasonal fluctuations and the low supply of fodder due to extreme climatic conditions are the main reasons for their year-round mobile way of life.8) As the owners of the herds, which usually consist of several animal species, they accompany the cattle in a closed family unit together with their household goods on their migrations to fresh pastures. However, the animals - depending on the habitat, usually camels, reindeer, sheep or goats - serve the pastoral nomads almost exclusively as a source of food and clothing (milk, wool) and almost never as a direct source of meat.9)
Agropastoralism and nomadism – these economic systems, in all their different forms, represent a sustainable adaptation to ecologically usable marginal areas that is still practised by humans today.
And we would like to get to know these people and, ideally, learn from them how they use knowledge that has been handed down for generations to ensure their livelihoods in climatically challenging areas.
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Our next post is about fish and seafood.
* The biological value of the proteins in food (= measure) indicates the efficiency with which they can be used to form the body's own protein.
References:
1) Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, 2022: Leitsätze für Fleisch und Fleischerzeugnisse, last amended by the notice of 22 February 2024, taken from the internet on 26.09.2024, https://www.bmel.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/_Ernaehrung/Lebensmittel-Kennzeichnung/LeitsaetzeFleisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=16
2) Willam, A., Simianer, H., 2017: Tierzucht, 2. completely revised and extended edition, a) page 29, b) page 22 f., Verlag Eugen Ulmer KG, Stuttgart, ISBN: 978-3-8252-4805-5
3) Rimbach, G., Nagursky, J., Erbersdobler H. F., 2015: Lebensmittel-Warenkunde für Einsteiger, 2. edition, page 66, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, ISBN: 978-3-662-46280-5
4) Cf. Statista.com, 2024: Verschiedene Statistiken, taken from the internet on 25.09.2024, Data on meat production: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/28782/umfrage/die-globale-fleischerzeugung-seit-1990/, Geflügelfleisch: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/28877/umfrage/erzeugung-von-gefluegelfleisch-weltweit-seit-1990/, Schweinefleisch: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/261938/umfrage/weltweite-nettoerzeugung-von-schweinefleisch/, Rindfleisch: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/317712/umfrage/produktion-von-rindfleisch-weltweit/
5) Cf. Statistisches Bundesamt, 2023: Globale Tierhaltung, Fleischproduktion und Fleischkonsum, taken from the internet on 25.09.2024, https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Laender-Regionen/Internationales/Thema/landwirtschaft-fischerei/tierhaltung-fleischkonsum/_inhalt.html#:~:text=Lag%20der%20durchschnittliche%20weltweite%20Jahreskonsum,2020%20rund%2042%2C8%20Kilogramm.
6) Cf. Wikipedia, 2024: Agropastoralismus, taken from the internet on 26.09.2024, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agropastoralismus
7) Vgl. Wikipedia, 2024: Qanat, taken from the internet on 26.09.2024, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat
8) Cf. Wikipedia, 2024: Nomadismus, taken from the internet on 26.09.2024, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomadismus
9) Cf. Wiemann, N., 2012: Infoblatt Nomadismus, last updated on 30.09.2019, Geographie Infothek, Klett-Verlag, Leipzig, taken from the internet on 26.09.2024, https://static.klett.de/assets/terrasse/Infoblatt_Nomadismus.pdf