Beef Production by Country 2024

What this chart shows. The 25 countries that produced the most beef in 2024, in thousands of tonnes. The United States led with 12,290 thousand tonnes, followed by Brazil with 10,238 thousand and China with 7,012 thousand. The world produced 69.7 million tonnes.

How the data is collected. The figures come from FAOSTAT, the statistics database of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which collects national production data through annual questionnaires and fills gaps with its own estimates. The item is meat of cattle, measured as carcass weight with the bone in; China's figure is an FAO estimate rather than an official one.

Background. The United States and Brazil together produced 32.3 per cent of the world's beef. Brazil's output rose 14.2 per cent from 2023, while world production grew 3.3 per cent.

Limits. India does not appear: FAO records no cattle meat for India, flagging it as a figure that cannot exist, and counts buffalo meat as a separate item. The US Department of Agriculture, which combines the two, puts India at 4,565 thousand tonnes of beef and veal. USDA's figures otherwise agree on the top three, and its US total, 12,291 thousand tonnes, matches FAO's almost exactly.