Data Source
According to Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics (FAOSTAT), hundreds of billions of animals (land and aquatic combined) are slaughtered for food every year. In order to have enough animals for slaughter, the number of farmed animals is bound to exceed this number. In addition to a population of more than 7 billion, Earth must also carry hundreds of billions of animals. The burden on the environment can be imagined!
The data in the table below are numbers of animals slaughtered for meat production. The numbers of livestock for egg and dairy products are not included. Number of aquatic animals slaughtered is difficult to estimate because of the wide diversity of species and range of sizes. The FAO data are estimated based on weight, but number is a better indicator of the scale of human activity.
Therefore, some marine biologists use FAO statistics and combine with the mean weight of fish species to estimate the number of aquatics killed. The FAO numbers do not include illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, nor discarded fish. If these are included, the totals increase by about 16.6% to 33.3%. The number of slaughtered aquatic in this table is based on the data from Fishcount (UK).
Line Charts
From line chart 1-1 to 1-3, we can see the trend in number of animals slaughtered due to diet choice of humankind over the past few decades. Among terrestrial animals, number of slaughtered chickens is the highest. It has to be counted in tens of billions, and is growing extremely. The number expands from less than 10 billion in the 1960s to more than 70 billion in 2018. Followed by ducks, pigs, sheep, rabbits and cattle. In terms of aquaculture industry, the scale of farming has also increased rapidly since 1990, and surpassed fishing since 2010.
Only the number of animals slaughtered for meat products is counted in all statistics. The damage caused by these activities is not estimated. For example, purse seining. The process of throwing unwanted fish back into the sea causes death of countless fish, because all the fish are caught on boat regardless of species and sizes. This sector is not included in the statistics.
The current development of sustainable agriculture includes animal farming. In recent researches and reports, there have been many studies on “Sustainable Livestock Farming”. One reason for the surge in aquaculture is that policies and researches of many countries and institutions are attempting to replace livestock with aquaculture. They believe that this will reduce carbon emissions and pollution. But doing this will bring a huge impact on the marine ecology as well. Oceans, like forests, maintain the delicate balance of Earth. If the oceans are reclaimed at random while the forests around the world have not yet restored, it will bring unimaginable disasters.
Further Reading: 1-3 Greenhouse Effect and Greenhouse Gases | 1-5 The Real Percentage of Emission | 1-2 The Cost of Meat Eating Habit and Livestock T
Cited Reports: Fishcount Study | FAOSTAT(To search numbers of animal slaughtered each year.)
Relative Download: Diet and Environment Relative Download