China is the world's largest producer and consumer of pork, the second largest producer of poultry and the fourth largest dairy producer. How and why has China achieved this "meat miracle"? What are the politics of this growth and the role of Chinese and foreign transnationals? Can China continue producing and consuming more or are there social and ecological limits that create "peak meat"?
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Mindi Schneider
Shefali Sharma
Moderator: Ben Lilliston, VP for Program, IATP
Speakers:
Mindi Schneider, Assistant Professor of Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands
Mindi Schneider has done extensive fieldwork in northeast and southwest China on the changing political and economic significance of pork, and the relationships between increased meat consumption, peasant dispossession, and environmental crises. Schneider has published and spoken about her work in China broadly, including the report Feeding China's Pigs: Implications for the Environment, China's Smallholder Farmers and Food Security for IATP in 2011.
Shefali Sharma, Director of Agricultural Commodities and Globalization, IATP
Shefali is leading IATP's initiative on the social and environmental impacts of an increasingly globalized and concentrated meat industry. Her work in the past year has focused on China's meat and feed industries, the culmination of which are the four IATP reports. Over the last 18 years, Shefali's work has also focused on accountability of international trade and financial institutions, international trade and agricultural policies and their implications for social justice.
