Animal product consumption

Abstract

[Extract] Chapters 4 and 5 confirm that in both rural and urban China consumption of foodgrain has been declining while that of other foods, especially animal products, has been increasing. Increased consumption of animal products requires more feedgrains to produce extra animals. Indeed, it has been increasingly recognised that feedgrain demand in China will become the major component of China's total grain demand. Many believe that any future increase in total grain demand in China will be mainly caused by an increasing demand for feedgrains (for example, Garnaut and Ma 1992; Findlay 1998, p. 32; Zhou and Tian 2003).

As a derived demand, the demand for feedgrains is closely related to the demand for animal products. As such, an understanding of animal product consumption trends in China is invaluable. It is imperative to gain reliable infonnation about the current level of animal product consumption, as this is fundamental to predicting the likely consumption of animal products and hence to shed light on likely demand for feedgrains.