Meat Consumption Characteristics And Influence Factors Of Urban And Rural Residents In China

At present, China is in the important period of food consumption pattern transformation. Food nutrition and safety become the main factors of residents’ attention. As an essential part of animal by-products and vegetable basket, meat products play an important role in the transition.This paper analysed the past thirty years China’s meat consumption and the change of the structure by using the statistical yearbook data.Then utilizing the household food consumption survey data in 2013,urban and rural residents’ meat consumption characteristic was analyzed from the perspective of income, region, nutrition.This paper also analyzed the differences between urban and rural resident. At the same time, in order to investigate the differences of meat consumption between China and other areas, this article selects the Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, the United States as a reference, analyzed 30 to 50 years of meat consumption character of five typical areas, and make a contrast under the condition of equal per capita GDP. This paper selected prices, income, region and economy as the independent variable, analyzed the influence factors of meat products based on the theories of consumption.Finally,this article made analysis of the development tendency of meat consumption, and put forward relevant policy suggestions in view of the present existing problems.This study found that:(1) over the past 30 years, meat per capita is keep growing, pork consumption is falling and rising proportion of red meat and poultry.For urban residents, per capita consumption of meat and pork is the highest in the east.Poultry meat is the highest in the west rigion. red meat consumption is lower in each rigion; Rural residents’ consumption trend is the same as the urban. On the revenue side, urban residents shows the tendency of middle high two head low.Above the middle income, pork decline with the increase of income, beef and mutton increases with the increase of income; Rural residents’ meat consumption in proportion to income.(2) Rural residents meat consumption is only half of the residents.(3) Compared with typical region, the consumption structure is similar to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and is different to the US. Meat consumption is given priority to pork in each rigion, beef and mutton consumption in China needs to improve.According to the above research, this paper puts forward the relevant policy recommendations: stable livestock and poultry production, improve the supply of meat; adjust the structure of meat production, and promote the healthy development of the meat industry; to enhance the publicity on dietary knowledge, improve the residents’ consumption idea.