The poultry industry has quietly outpaced every other animal protein over the past six decades, becoming the standout performer in global food production and reshaping how the world feeds itself, according to a new Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study
A new report, “Drivers of supply and demand of terrestrial animal source food,” tracks global output of meat, milk and eggs from 1961 to 2022 across every scale of production, from smallholder crop-livestock systems to industrial operations, grazing and pastoralism, even wildlife farming and hunting. The headline finding is stark: poultry meat output grew roughly five-fold over the period, while eggs and pig meat nearly doubled and bovine meat stayed flat or declined in many regions. By 2022, global meat production had reached 361 million tonnes, up from around 71 million tonnes in 1961, alongside 930 million tonnes of milk and 94 million tonnes of eggs, both roughly triple their 1961 levels.
Asia has overtaken every other region to become the largest producer of terrestrial animal source foods, with Europe close behind but the FAO is careful to separate production leadership from actual consumer access. Per capita supply remains highest in Northern America, while Asia, despite producing the most, delivers relatively little to each individual person. Sub-Saharan Africa’s picture is more stagnant still, with per capita supply largely unchanged over the decades and only isolated bright spots with milk gains in Kenya, poultry gains in South Africa, breaking an otherwise flat trend.
Waste compounds the disparity. An estimated one-third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted, including roughly 14% of terrestrial animal source foods specifically, losses the FAO links to the perishable nature of these products combined with inadequate cold chain infrastructure and poor temperature control, problems that hit hardest precisely in the low- and middle-income countries where animal-source food consumption is already lowest. International trade, meanwhile, has grown in absolute terms but still accounts for only about 10% of global consumption, leaving most countries dependent on what they can produce domestically rather than import.
The report also flags a quieter but consequential gap as healthier animal-source food options are often less accessible and affordable than higher-fat alternatives and national policy responses diverge sharply by income level. Wealthier countries focus their legislation on food safety, quality standards and marketing regulation, while lower-income countries prioritise simply boosting production, improving availability and lowering prices to support affordability and self-sufficiency, two very different policy problems wearing the same “livestock policy” label.
FAO Deputy Director-General, Godfrey Magwenzi and FAO Chief Economist, Máximo Torero framed the sector’s potential and its constraints together, “The many breeds and species of livestock on our planet can thrive in a wide range of environments, particularly in areas less suited or unsuitable for crop production and contribute to a wide variety of healthy diets. However, to optimise this contribution to human and planetary health, the livestock sector must address a range of challenges.”
These challenges span environmental pressures including deforestation, land-use change, greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution, alongside herd management problems such as low productivity and overgrazing, animal welfare concerns and broader social and health risks including zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance. The FAO’s findings suggest the next challenge isn’t producing more animal-source food, it’s making sure the gains in supply actually translate into better nutrition where it’s needed most.
