Beef consumption is the lowest in over 100 years

The pounds of beef that Argentines eat on average remained in 2021 at the lowest level for over 100 years: 47.8 kilograms per inhabitant.

The decline occurred together with the decline in GDP per capita. In the economy in general, the years 74-75 are considered the beginning of the fall. Y In the case of meat, the slip began in 1977.

That year, Argentina had a herd of 61 million cattle, which it implied 2.29 animals per inhabitant. Today that ratio dropped to 1.13with 53.4 million head of cattle and 47 million of the current population.

In 1920 alone, the national intake of the emblematic product was lower: 46.9 per year, according to a report by the Rosario Exchange (BCR) which coincides with similar estimates, for example by the Institute for the Promotion of Argentine Meat (IPCVA) . ).

The consumption of beef, whose historical average between 1914 and 2021 was 73.4 kg / person / year, was already in reverse in the Argentine diet. The average has dropped to 54.5 kilograms per inhabitant per year over the past five years and continues to decline.

“It is a consequence of the direct drop in consumption, but also increased absorption of other animal proteins”, Explain the report by Alberto Lugones and Emilce Terré, from the BCR economic department.

With all, total meat consumption increasedwhich explains the decline in participation: beef now represents 44% of the 109.4 kilograms per inhabitant per year of animal protein, when at the beginning of this millennium it represented between 60% and 70%.

In this sense, they indicated that from 1975 to today the production beef remained in a range “relatively” stable from 2.5 to 3 million tons per year.

As for the exports, recorded a wide range ranging from 0.16 to 0.82 million tons. In this sense, if we compare the 0.74 million tons exported in 2021 with the 0.38 million tons of 1960, the growth of foreign trade is 81%.

But countries like Brazil and India, in the same period, went from exporting absolutely nothing to shipping 2.54 and 1.40 million tons respectivelywhile the dispatches of Australia (country that in 1960 was ranked second as the main exporter of meat behind Argentina), almost multiplied by 7 and those of New Zeland of 4 ″, explains the report.

Thus, the Argentina fell from the top spot as a beef exporter in 1960 (when it supplied around 40% of its international demand) in fifth place in 2021, with a market share of just 6%.