Hello and good morning,

I wish to compile an accurate list of the top 10 meat producing
countries in the world, segmented by animal type, year 2001 or latest
possible production numbers (per head), average live weight prior to
slaughter, average FCR per country, and cost per Kg or Lb for the feed
and run time or growing time. Animals I wish to cover are as follows;

1) Broiler chickens
2) Layers (Food intake only)  
3) Pork and or Hog
4) Turkeys
5) Cattle

Look forward to your response and thank you in advance for your
interest and help.

Regards Rob Cruickshank

---

Request for Question Clarification by omniscientbeing-ga on 16 Jun 2002 06:49 PDT

Can you please give me a brief description of what 2) "Layers(food intake only)"is?
Thanks.

---

Clarification of Question by braindamage-ga on 16 Jun 2002 09:19 PDT

Hi Omni,

Thank you for your interest and helpfulness! (Now that's an old
fashion word!).  As I understand, Layer chickens do not have an FCR in
the same way as broilers, or breeders, rather they do so much for so
little unless you can enlighten me otherwise!  Are they measured by
eggs per kg?  What is their economic measure?

So if you think it is sensible to skip No 2, please feel free to do
so.  Your question is a good one.  I will have to think about it! 
Perhaps you can tell me how the industry measures "layer" efficiency.

Again, thank you for your interest and willingness to help.  If it is
of interest to you I am from New Zealand and I am doing a post grad on
world poultry, AET.  We skite an FCR of 1.55 kg on live wieght of 2.20
kgs!

Thanks and Regards "Omni Science Being"!  

Braindamage.

---

Clarification of Question by braindamage-ga on 17 Jun 2002 15:40 PDT

Hi There!

Sorry about delay in getting back to you.  Yes please include specific
EU country (if known) and if it fits within top 10 criteria.

Thanks.

---

Clarification of Question by braindamage-ga on 20 Jun 2002 14:24 PDT

Hi Omni,

Feel free to include Turkeys.  It may be of help if I explain that my
quest for this imformation is based on identifying the major world
markets for improving feed conversion ratios in confined feeding
operations (CAFO, as they are known in the States).

To do this I need to know the current FCR per animal type, current
average live weight and total production by number of head (or weight,
providing I know what the average slaughtered live-weight is so I can
deduce the number of live stock head).  Then I calculate the feed cost
per industry so I can work out what each country is spending on feed
for each animal type.

Example, for broilers in the US the current industry FCR is 2.0 Kg to
produce an average live-weight of 2.2 Kg. This equates to 2 x 2.2 =
4.4Kg of grain per bird.  At US$ 0.30 per Kg this equals a cost of
feed of US$1.32 per bird.  Using NASS, USDA figures for 2001 of 42
billion pounds converted to metric is 18.6 million tonnes divided by
average market weight of 2.2 kgs equals 8.46 billion birds multiplied
by $1.32 to give an industry spend on feeding broilers of......wait
for it.....US$11.1 billion !  Perhaps this excercise will give you a
better appreciation of what I need or at least what  point I am trying
to arrive at in order to complete this excercise.  Also why I use the
nickname Braindamage!

Omni, thanks for your continued interest.  Hang in there for me. I
need help.  If it is easier for you to just concentrate on the top
Five countries then that will suffice if I get the basic facts I need
to make my final calculations.  Thanks again.

OK, thanks for your clarification, Braindamage. I was wondering, in
addition to Layer chickens (which will have a different FCR than meat
chickens), are there Layer turkeys as well? (I may or may not be able
to provide this much detail, but I thought I would at least be aware
of the different categories).

I myself am a marine biologist, and am in the process of compiling
similar statistics for the aquaculture industry (tons/country produced
for each species, over time), so attempting to answer your question
will give me insights into my work also.

I am attempting to put together an answer for you at this time, but
for now, to hold you over, the link below goes to a site listing the
top 10 meat producing countries for 1993,from FAO(which may work for
the 10 years ago overall "snapshot" of the industry--let me know why
if it does not.

http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:_BhMhuiidJoC:www.agrevo.com/is_agrevo/Backgrd/pdf/food10.pdf+meat+producing+countries&hl=en

At the top of this page is a link to the .PDF file, which will no
doubt be easier to read than this Google-generated HTML format page of
the actual PDF document.

I'm sorry, I re-read your question and realized that you did not ask
for stats from 10 years ago also--only the current year. (I'm mixing
up yours with my own project, where I needed to know this year's stats
as well as those from 5, 10 and 20 years ago, to analyze production
trends over time.

Many of the sources I am finding combine several Europoean countries
into the EU (European Union?) for meat production figures. Is it
acceptable to you to have statistics on production from the EU as a
single "country" or does it have to be broken down by each European
country individually, for those countries in Europe?

OK, I have compiled accurate statistics from FAS for 2001 figures for
beef, chicken and turkey production. I haven't done all the eggs
yet,nor all the FCRs.

Most Europpean countries are combined into the EU.  

Although I still have to add up the numbers, it is looking like USA,
EU, Brazil, China, Japan and Russia are the biggies. Countries 8-10
are more difficult to rank.

Tomorrow I will post my answer in final form, complete with links,
search strategies and explanation (I compiled the raw data tonight,
but don't have time to organize it into an "official" presentation
right now).

I've been held up a little on FCR rates per country, but I have the
production figures.

Before I posted my "final" answer (I know,this isn't a game show!, I
thought I would give you a "taste" of it,so that you could tell me if
it is absolutely notwhat you are looking for before I completed the
list. If I don't hear from you soon, I'll just continue andpost my
answer.

Below is the list I compiled of the top 10 meat producing countries in
2001. Much of the data is from FAS 2001 data (FAS homepage =
http://www.fas.usda.gov/dlp/dlp.html but specific page links will be
provided below ):

I have listed all the information I could find thus far. Current gaps
include breaking down some data from the European Union (EU) to their
constituent countries, and also USA turkey figures.

*********Note: Beef units = 1,000 tons; carcass weight equivalent, 
broiler chicken units = 1,000 tons ready to cook equivalent,
pork units = 1,000 tons; carcass weight equivalent,
turkey units = Turkeys (1,000) tons ready to cook
equivalent***********
  
2001 World Meat Production:

1. USA (11,698 beef) + (14,033 broiler chicken) + (8,790 pork)= 34,521
thousand tons total meat production 2001 (with turkey figures absent)
2. EU (7,044 beef) + (6,822 broiler chicken) + (17,600 pork) + (1,800
turkey) = 33,266 34,521 thousand tons total meat production 2001
3. Brazil (6,895 beef) + (6,580 broiler chicken) + (2,216 pork) + (165
turkey)= 15,856 34,521 thousand tons total meat production 2001
4. 

Is this more or less what you are looking for? 
<end sample>

Hi Omni,

How's it going out there?  Not heard from you for a while.  Hate to
waste all the good work you have done to date and not get your just
reward!   Post another clarification so we can catch up.  Hope my last
comment did not phase you.

Regards

Braindamage

Hello! I saw that the question was closed/expired so I stopped working
on it. Are you still interested?