Study On The Characteristic And Influence Factor Of Beef Consumption In China

Since china took the policy of reform and opening in 1980s, the beef consumption in china has risen continually with the increase of people's living standard. From the variation of the consumptional structure of meat, it can be found the beef consumption jumped dramatically from 2.26 to 9.01 percent of the total consumption of meat from 1980 to 2003. But compared with the level of beef consumption in the Western developed countries, ex. USA, China is lower. And even in relation to Taiwan and Japan, which have same diet custom to Chinese people, the gap is obvious. And with growth of the total population and the urbanization, beef consumption still has a large space of growth in China. The present study shows that the research about the beef consumption has lagged the practice in china. And there are much data of livestock consumption, which is mainly take it as a food consumption system variable. Presently, there is lacked the study, which is directly to the consumption about classification animal products. At the same time, beef consumption has shown some characteristics in the process.The objectives of this paper is to, on the basis of depth analysis of beef production and consumption, analyze different factors which affect beef consumption. We use model to calculate the income elasticity, price elasticity and cross-elasticity, and the results show that only income and beef prices affect consumption significantly. We also use survey data analysis related to other factors, such as beef quality, consumer preferences, purchasing location and other factors. The results show that beef is seen high-grade materials and is a favored food to some degree.