The 'Livestock Revolution': rhetoric and reality

The unprecedented growth in developing countries in the demand for food of animal origin, dubbed the 'Livestock Revolution', is expected to give rise to major opportunities and threats worldwide. This assumption tends to dominate the policy debate, and inadequate attention is given to regional and national specificities. This paper presents an exploratory cross-country analysis of trends in the consumption of animal-source food in 88 developing countries during 1980-2003. It provides evidence that the Livestock Revolution has been, at least so far, a very circumscribed phenomenon affecting only few countries. However, a large share of the world's population lives in countries that are recording remarkable increases in the consumption of animal-source food. The question remains whether the term 'Livestock Revolution' is appropriate to represent trends that have hitherto involved only a minority of developing countries.