50% Reduction in Red Meat Consumption in Iran
Mansour Pourian, head of Iran’s Livestock Supply Council, has stated that “people’s economic conditions and coronavirus” have caused a recession in the red meat market and a 50% reduction in red meat consumption in Iran.
In an interview published on Friday, August 6, by ILNA news agency, he announced that the normal annual consumption of red meat in Iran is one million tons, and said that “consumption has now decreased to half, meaning 500,000 tons.”
He also reported shortages of forage, drought, water supply crisis, and economic problems faced by livestock farmers in purchasing animal feed inputs, stating that these factors have made red meat production “turn into a loss-making economic activity.”
Multiple reports on declining red meat consumption in Iran have been published over the past decade.
Based on estimates by the Iran Statistics Center, per capita consumption of red meat in the country in 2011 was approximately 13 kilograms, which continuously decreased until 2019 and dropped to 8 kilograms. Accordingly, from 2011 to 2019, red meat consumption among Iranians decreased by 38.5%.
The Statistics Center has not yet published a report on red meat consumption for 2020, but some estimates indicated that per capita consumption last year dropped below 5 kilograms.
Source: Radio Farda
