In 1980, when the population was still under one billion, the average Chinese person ate 20kg (44lbs) of meat; last year, with an extra 300 million people, it was 54kg. The country as a whole now chomps through more than 60m tonnes of meat a year, roughly equivalent to 240 million cows, or 600 million pigs, or 24 billion chickens. It is a worldwide trend that is taking grain away from the world's poor. The consumption of meat in developing countries is rising by more than 5% a year.
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