Summary
The FAO provides data on crop and livestock production for over 245 member countries. Official data from FAO member countries is collected from three primary sources: surveys, national publications, and official country websites. When official data is unavailable, unofficial sources are used (e.g., USDA). The FAO enters imputed values for fields with missing data.
Using this FAO data, Our World in Data reports the annual evolution from 1961 to 2020 of meat production in millions of tons grouped by continent; Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Oceania. For example, the graph sheds light on how the distribution of the different continents’ production has changed over the years and how, in aggregate terms, it has increased notably over time. According to Our World in Data, as of 2020, Asia was the largest meat producer. However, a few decades ago, in 1961, Europe and North America were the largest producers. The subset of data used for this analysis is available by clicking on the Download tab on this chart.
Our World in Citation: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2017) – “Meat and Dairy Production”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production [Online Resource]
*Note: according to the FAO, geographical comparisons are limited due to differences in methods in each area. Additionally, the FAO states there is fairly good comparability for shorter time periods, but that full comparability cannot be expected for very long periods (i.e., from 1961) due to changes in product definition and classification.