Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, UN report finds

Key points

• The average person eats about six times as much chicken and twice as much pork as their grandparents’ generation did, data from a UN report suggests, with global meat supply having risen fourfold in the last 60 years and expected to keep rising.
• The supply of poultry rose from below 3kg a person in 1961 to 17kg in 2022, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
• Pork supply doubled to 15kg a person over the same period, while beef, the most polluting food, stayed steady at 9kg.
• Agriculture is the second most polluting sector of the global economy.
• Its planet-heating emissions are forecast to rise by 7.6% over the next decade, according to the FAO’s review of the science on the drivers of meat supply and demand, with livestock responsible for an estimated 80% of the increase.