High-steaks challenge: how China feeds its huge, meat-hungry population
Published: 10:00am, 30 Jan 2025 Lunar New Year, arguably China's biggest annual holiday, can be seen as a barometer for the country's economy. As more than a billion people travel, shop, eat and give gifts to family and friends, their preferences and habits paint a picture of the nation's consumption over a few festive weeks. This is the seventh story in a nine-part series .
For decades, China has had to confront the challenge of feeding nearly one-fifth of the world's population with less than one-tenth of its arable land.
But that task has become even more daunting in recent years, as Chinese consumers increasingly adopt meat-heavy, Western-style diets that require far more resources to sustain. The average Chinese national now consumes even more protein than an American on a daily basis, data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) shows, and China's appetite for meat continues to grow.
Chinese consumers had an average daily protein intake of 124.61 grams (4.4 ounces) in 2021, whereas the figure for people in the United States was 124.33 grams (4.39 ounces), according to the latest available UNFAO data.
People in China now have a far more protein-rich diet than peers in India, where the average resident consumed 70.52 grams (2.49 ounces) per day in 2021. They also consume significantly more than their neighbours in Japan and South Korea.
The transformation in Chinese people's diets has primarily been driven by rising meat consumption, the UNFAO report found. It is a trend that is being felt across the global economy.
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