The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) confidently predict that the demand for meat will increase by 50 percent between 2000 and 2020 and for eggs by 25percent over the same period. They predict that the growth in demand will be greatest for pigs and poultry products. This challenge will be met through increases in production and productivity.

Increases in demand will be driven a combination of population increase and economic growth. The greatest increases will be in the rapidly growing economies of Asia – particularly in India and China. While local production meet much of the growing and diversifying needs of consumers it is also inevitable that international trade in animal products will grow. As the wealth of consumers increase so will their tastes diversify together with their interest in sources of food and choice. BSE and outbreaks of foot and mouth have focused consumer interests on food safety issues and have in part contributed to concerns over the production and use of genetically modified organisms.