Demand for Animal Products May Double in 20 years
GLOBE - As the world's population grows, the need to ensure food safety from farms to fork has become a major international concern, with most of the attention focused on livestock. Producer Zulima Palacio talked to some of the world authorities in this field. Mil Arcega narrates the story.
17 October 2007
1 minute read
| Francois Le Gall |
The world's population is growing at a tremendous pace - adding about 78 million people a year. United Nations estimates show that by the year 2030 more than eight billion people will inhabit the Earth, straining the world's ability to feed itself.
Bernard Vallat is the director of the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE [for Office International des Epizooties] describes the operation. "We know that we have in the coming 10 years, one billion additional meat consumers in China, India and other emerging countries" he said.
"In the following two decades the demand for animal products is going to double and so the supply is going to follow the demand and because of all kind of constraints, this supply of animal products is going to come from developing countries,” said Francois Le Gall.
Le Gall, of the World Bank agrees with Vallat's assessment that only 40 out of about 200 countries in the world have the capacity to respond to a health crisis that originates from animal disease.
