For the worldwide poultry market today and tomorrow, the factor with the greatest single influence on demand and potential growth is the number of consumers. Therefore this WATT Executive Guide to World Poultry Trends includes a summary of the data and forecasts available from international agencies relating to the size of the human population, both globally and regionally.
Approximately 60% of the 6,906,588,000 people estimated to occupy this planet in 2010 live in the Asia-Pacific territory. Africa has 15%, Europe 11%, Latin America 9% and North America 5%.
These percentages are worth noting in the context of an analysis by the United Nations of prospects for world population growth. As reviewed in a recent OECD publication, the rates of change expected for the global regions differ quite markedly. They also suggest (Table 1) a relative slowing of the growth rate for all of the regional human populations in the coming two decades.
Insights of Asia
Among the largest of the individual countries, in China the rate of increase is expected to slow from 0.67% per year in 2000-2009 to 0.57% in 2010-2019 and a reduction also is projected for India, from 1.54% to 1.20%. Nevertheless, as another OECD review confirms (Table 2), the population of China is forecast to exceed that of India only until about 2020. The forecasters say these roles will be reversed by 2050, with India becoming the biggest at 1.65 billion people ahead of China with 1.41 billion.
