Dataset of the Day: Holy Cow!

So who’s producing the most beef in the world? Who’s consuming the most beef in the world? After uploading world production and consumption data into Finder from the FAOSTAT (Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations) website, I was able to reveal where most of the world’s beef is being produced and eaten:

To view the data sets: Consumption, Production

As you can see in the above map, both China and the United States are the leading consumers and producers of beef followed by a close Brazil. In 2004 alone, China recorded consuming 71,822,537 tons of beef— China, United States, and Brazil combined, consumed 122,606,297 tons of beef. What else is evident from the map, is that most countries that are consuming the most beef are producing their fair share making them presumably self sustainable.

While on my data search endeavor, I was interested in finding out some of the impacts that production and consumption of beef has on global populations and the environment. In particular, the effects from the three leading beefed-up countries: U.S., China, and Brazil.

By first considering the U.S., Jamais Cascio came up with the “The Cheeseburger Footprint” theory, which he claims the total process it takes to produce, and make a cheeseburger, is one of the major contributing factors of carbon emissions in the U.S. The map below reveals global carbon footprints and the U.S. as the leader:

In Brazil, cattle production has had a major impact on deforestation. Cutting down rainforest to farm soybeans, and creating more grazing land for cattle, has significantly raised carbon emissions.

Something else to consider about massive cattle production is that cows are rudiment animals, belching and releasing up a methane gas storm—one cow emits more than 100kg of methane annually.

By using Finder and Maker to load and map data, both of these maps revealed some alarming visual analytics about the consumption and production of beef. I think I might hold off on my next cheeseburger…