MEAT AND WOOL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 107, 19 April 1933, Page 4

MEAT AND WOOL

THE WORLD’S PRODUCTION VARIED USES OE SHEEP AND CATTLE. BRITISH EMPIRE DEFICIENT IN PIGS. With tiie unsettled state of the world's markets for animal products, such as meat, wool, butter and cheese, it is interesting to observe how much the various countries of the world are concerned with these respective branches of the agricultural industry. The following article incorporates the review made by the Empire Marketing Board in connection with the livestock of the world. Complete figures of the world’s population of the chief meat-producing animals —cattle, sheep, and pigs—are lucking. In some countries, and those not the least important from the point of view of livestock numbers, the figures are admittedly incomplete; in others they arc only rough approximations; in yet others the totals can only be guessed. But on the whole it appears beyond reasonable doubt that the world’s sheep are rather more numerous than its cattle and its cattle very much more numerous than its pigs. Such figures as are available suggest that the sheep population of the world is about 750 millions, of which about 280 millions, or roughly 37 per cent., are in the British Empire, states a report prepared by the Empire Marketing Board; the cattle population about 600 millions, of which approximately 230 millions, or 40 per cent., are in the Empire; and the pig population (including an estimate of 80 millions for China) at about 280 millions, of which barely 12 millions, or not much more than 4 per cent., are in the Empire. Thus, the Empire in relation to its population and land area, has its full share of the cattle and sheep of the world, but is deficient in pigs. To these animals may be added some 60 million buffaloes, of which 45 millions are in the Empire, and perhaps 200 million goats, including 75 millions in the Empire. The output of meat from these animals is, however, not proportionate to their numbers. Taking the world as a whole, it is probable that beef is by no means the principal object of raising cattle, for throughout Asia, and to a considerable extent in Eastern and Southern Europe and in Africa, the chief value of cattle is as a work animal, and the meat yield, if indeed, the animal is ultimately slaughtered for meat, is smaller and of poorer quality than that of cattle bred for their meat alone, and may come only at the end of a relatively long life of toil. In most countries also a larger or smaller, but usually substantial, proportion of the herds is kept for milk purposes, and the meat output from these is confined to the veal from the calves not wanted for replenishing or increasing the herds, and the meat yield from the cow after some years of service as a milk producer. USES OE SHEEP PRODUCTS.

The sheep is similarly an animal used for more than one purpose. Those countries with the largest aggregate flocks are less interested in the meat yield of the animal than in its value as an instrument for the production of an annual supply of wool. Australia, where the majority of the sheep are kept principally for their fleece, has a total of rather over 100 million sheep and the annual slaughter averages about 13 million, but New Zealand, with flocks of under 30 million head, kept for both wool and mutton, has been slaughtering for food at the rate of between nine and 10 millions annually, and has yet increased her flocks by nearly four millions in four years. In England and Wales also, where wool is'almost entirely a secondary objective, tho sheep population is less than one-sixth of that of Australia, while the numbers of sheep and lambs slaughtered annually are more than half as large. In contrast with cattle and sheep, pigs are kept almost entirely for their meat. The yield of bristles is of some importance, especially in China ano Russia, but ou the whole the pig has little value except for its meat yield. For this reason, and also because the turnover is so rapid, the importance of pigs in the world’s agricultural revenue is far greater than their smaller numbers and the smaller weight of the dressed carcase (as compared with cattle) would suggest. The indirect value of livestock to crops and pastures, important though it is, cannot be taken into account in estimating the relative values of the output of cattle, sheep, and pigs. In the absence of annual figures of livestock slaughter in many countries, it is impossible to make anything but a very approximate estimate of the world’s meat supplies. Very few countries publish figures either of the total numbers of stock slaughtered or of the meat produced, and any estimate of the meat production in such countries as China, India, and Tropical Africa can be hardly more than conjecture. From such data as are available, however, the annual slaughter of cattle and calves may be very roughly placed at 125 millions, about 60 per cent, being adult beasts and 40 per cent, calves; goats, sheep, and lambs at rather more than 200 milliuns ad pigs at about 250 millions. Tho annual volume of meat

production on this basis may be estimated at about 14 million tons of beef, about two million tons of veal, 3} to 4 million tons of mutton and lamb, and 14 to 15 million tons of pork. No great degree of accuracy can be claimed for these estimates, but they do suggest that there is not a great deal of difference between the world production of beef and that of pork, although the inclusion of veal probably gives beef a slight lead. Mutton and lamb clearly occupy a much lower position. Although the Empire has a large proportion of the cattle and sheep, the. output of meat is comparatively small, owing chiefly to the small output of beef from the large cattle population of India. The Empire is estimated to account for barely 15 per cent, of the estimated beef and veal output, for less than per cent, of the mutton and lamb, and for only about 5 per cent, of the pork. Meat is among the most important items in agricultural revenue in most countries outside the tropics, but the relatively small consumption of meat among large masses of the world’s population and the variation in national taste between beef and pork put each of these meats below milk or eggs, or W’heat or rice as a source of farm income in the world as a whole, although the combined value of the output, of all kinds of meat (as also the combined value of all grain crops sold for consumption off farms) would no doubt be greater than the value of the world’s milk production. In Great Britain beef, pig-meat, and mutton, in that order, follow milk and its products in order of cash value of farm output, while in the United States, on 1930 figures, pigs are second to milk, with cattle third, and sheep far down in the list. There can be. little doubt that in most countries of Europe the value of the output of either pork or beef, and in many countries of both, exceeds that of any grain crop, although in such countries as Italy, Rumania, Hungary, and Jugoslavia the cash value of the wheat sold is probably greater than the output value of either beef or pork. Outside Europe and the United States moat production is of rather less account in comparison with other farm products. In Canada the gross agricultural revenue derived from all farm animals is less than that from either milk or wheat, even at the greatly reduced wheat prices of 1931.