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 of meat production from 1961 to 2020 by country, both in terms of millions of tons produced, and in relative change in production compared to the previous year. This graph sheds light on how the distribution of the different countries’ production has changed over the years, and how, in aggregate terms, it has increased notably over time. The subset of data used for this analysis can be downloaded from the tab on this chart.
Our World in Data 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 different methods in each area. Additionally, the FAO states there is fairly good comparability for shorter periods, but that full comparability cannot be expected for very long periods (i.e., from 1961) due to changes in product definition and classification.