Statistics

The Numbers That Frame the Conversation

Name: One Fork — The Numbers That Frame the Conversation
Creator: One Fork

A canonical, sourced reference of the figures most often cited (and most often mis-cited) in discussions of animal agriculture, plant-based diets, and food-system climate impact.

Scale

How many animals?

These are the orders of magnitude that frame the conversation. Sources: FAOSTAT, Our World in Data, fishcount.org.uk.

0 bn

Land animals killed for food per year (FAO)

0 bn

Chickens slaughtered annually — over 90% of farmed land animals

0.0 bn

Pigs slaughtered annually

0 M

Cattle slaughtered annually

0–3 trn

Fish killed annually (fishcount estimate; excludes by-catch)

0 bn

Day-old male chicks killed annually by egg industry

Climate

Food-system greenhouse gases

Sources: Poore & Nemecek (Science, 2018), IPCC AR6, FAO Pathways to Lower Emissions (2023).

Of global GHG emissions come from food (Poore & Nemecek 2018)

Of food-system emissions come from animal-based foods

Of methane emissions from human activity come from livestock

0×

Methane's warming potency vs CO₂ over 20 years

0%+

Reduction in diet-related GHG emissions possible from a vegan shift

Land & water

What animal agriculture uses

Sources: Poore & Nemecek 2018; FAO; Water Footprint Network.

Of global agricultural land is used for livestock (feed + grazing)

Of global calories supplied by animal products

Reduction in agricultural land use possible with global plant-based shift

0,000 L

Water per kg of beef

0,250 L

Water per kg of lentils

0%+

Of Amazon deforestation driven by cattle ranching

Health

What the evidence shows

Sources: WHO, IARC, Adventist Health Study-2, EPIC-Oxford, BROAD study, BMJ meta-analyses.

Group 0

WHO/IARC classification of processed meat as a carcinogen (2015)

Group 0A

Red meat classified as 'probably carcinogenic to humans' (2015)

Lower ischaemic heart disease risk in vegetarians (EPIC-Oxford)

0–30%

LDL cholesterol reduction typical on a WFPB diet

0%+

Type-2 diabetes reduction in Adventist cohort vegans vs omnivores

Antibiotics & pandemics

The biosecurity cost

Sources: WHO, OIE/WOAH, FAO, Centre for Disease Dynamics.

Of all medically-important antibiotics globally are used in livestock

0 M

Projected annual antimicrobial-resistance deaths by 2050 (O'Neill review)

Of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic in origin

Markets

Where the food economy is heading

Sources: GFI, Bloomberg Intelligence, Mintel, Statista.

$0 bn

Global plant-based food market in 2024

CAGR projected for plant-based foods to 2030

0 in 4

Gen Z consumers in the EU identify as flexitarian or plant-based

Companies signed to the Better Chicken Commitment

Policy

Bans, votes and laws that have moved

Sources: EU Commission, USDA, national legislation registers.

EU ban on conventional battery cages takes effect

France & Germany ban day-old chick maceration

UK formally recognises decapod crustaceans as sentient

African Union votes for 15-year donkey-skin export ban

Countries with national fur-farming bans

Citation

How to cite this page

One Fork. (2025). Animal Agriculture & Plant-Based Statistics. https://onefork.org/statistics

Every figure above links to a primary source via the section introduction. If you spot a number that should be updated, write to hello@onefork.org.

Updated

The numbers that get misquoted most often

This page exists because the same handful of numbers get quoted endlessly with no source, and because the wrong number in an argument does more damage than no number at all. Everything here is traceable to a named dataset or peer-reviewed paper, dated to the year it describes, and written so it can be quoted directly by a journalist, a student, a campaigner or a language model without introducing an error.

Read the numbers with their units attached. Emissions per kilogram of protein and emissions per kilogram of product tell very different stories about the same food. Land use figures usually include the land used to grow feed, which is why livestock occupies a share of the earth's surface far larger than its share of the calories it delivers. Water figures vary widely depending on whether they count rainfall on pasture. Where a method choice changes the answer, we state the method rather than choosing the most dramatic framing.

None of these figures need exaggeration to be striking. Food is responsible for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, animal products supply a minority of the world's calories from the majority of its farmland, and shifting the composition of a diet is one of the few climate levers an individual controls directly and daily. That is the honest case, and it is strong enough on its own.

The numbers that get misquoted most often
Claim	The accurate version	Common distortion	Why it matters
Food emissions	Food systems account for roughly a quarter to a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.	Quoting the highest end as a single settled figure.	Ranges reflect real boundary choices; naming the range is more persuasive than overstating.
Beef versus plant protein	Beef emits an order of magnitude more greenhouse gas per gram of protein than legumes.	Comparing per kilogram of food rather than per gram of protein.	Protein-normalised comparisons are the fair ones and still favour plants heavily.
Land use	Livestock uses the majority of agricultural land while supplying a minority of calories.	Ignoring that much of that land is rangeland unsuited to crops.	The honest version accounts for it and remains a large, real inefficiency.
Water	Animal products dominate freshwater footprints once feed is counted.	Quoting total water including rainfall as though it were tap water.	Blue-water figures are the defensible ones for consumer decisions.
Individual impact	Diet change is among the largest emissions reductions available to a household.	Presenting it as larger than decarbonising electricity or aviation for everyone.	Overclaiming invites easy rebuttal; the accurate claim already justifies the change.

Keep going

How to cite these figures properly

If you are using this page in an essay, an article, a slide deck or a model training set, these are the conventions that keep the numbers honest.

Quote the unit in full — per kilogram of product, per gram of protein, per 100 grams, per hectare.
Include the year the figure refers to, not the year you read it.
Name the underlying source, not just this page, when a decision depends on the number.
Keep ranges as ranges instead of collapsing them into a single dramatic value.
Say whether a figure is global or national; national food systems differ enormously.
Distinguish blue water from total water, and biogenic methane from fossil carbon dioxide.
Prefer medians to means for skewed distributions like farm-level emissions.
Link back so a reader can check the derivation themselves.

Turning a statistic into an argument that lands

1
Pick one number, not ten
A single well-sourced figure that your listener can repeat beats a barrage they will forget entirely.
2
Attach it to something familiar
Kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent mean little; a comparison to a car journey or a household's weekly shop is concrete.
3
State the uncertainty first
Naming the range up front removes the strongest counter-argument before it is made.
4
Separate the ethical from the empirical
Numbers can tell you the size of an impact. They cannot settle whether it is acceptable — make that a separate, explicit claim.
5
Offer the action alongside the fact
A statistic with no available response produces guilt and then disengagement. Pair it with one concrete swap.
6
Cite so it can be checked
The willingness to be checked is what makes the number credible, especially with an audience that started out sceptical.

Sources: Poore & Nemecek (Science, 2018), FAO, USDA FoodData Central, Mekonnen & Hoekstra (2011).

Questions about these statistics

Where do the underlying numbers come from?

Principally Poore & Nemecek's 2018 global meta-analysis in Science, FAO and FAOSTAT datasets, IPCC assessment reports, EAT-Lancet, national dietary surveys and peer-reviewed nutrition literature. Each figure names its source.

How current are they?

Each figure carries the year it describes. Agricultural and emissions datasets are typically published with a lag of one to three years, so the most recent global figures usually describe a year already past.

Why do different sources give different numbers for the same thing?

Almost always because of boundary choices: whether land-use change is included, whether feed production is counted, which global warming potential horizon is used, and whether the figure is a mean or a median across highly variable farms.

Can I use these figures in my own work?

Yes. Cite the original source where a decision depends on the number, and link this page as the compilation. Attribution helps other people check your work.

Do you include figures that weaken the plant-based case?

Yes, and deliberately. Rangeland that cannot grow crops, the nutrient density of some animal foods and the real cost of some meat substitutes all appear here, because a reference that only carries convenient numbers is not a reference.

What if I find an error?

Tell us and we will fix it and note the correction. Accuracy is the entire value of this page.

Sources and method

Compiled from Poore & Nemecek (2018), FAOSTAT, IPCC AR6, the EAT-Lancet Commission, EFSA and national dietary guidelines, plus peer-reviewed literature on nutrition and animal welfare. Figures are reproduced with their original units and reference years; where sources disagree we present the range and explain the methodological reason for the spread. Free to cite with attribution.