Almost 60% of the farmed animal population in the VACI sample are kept in five countries (China, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil and India). The human dependency on animals varies widely from country to country. New Zealand has thirteen times more animals per person than India. Other things being equal, the greater the dependency, the more suffering inflicted on animals. Eight of the ten countries least dependent on animals (India, Sweden, Nigeria, Tanzania, Switzerland, Ethiopia, Philippines and Kenya) are among the ten least cruel countries according to the VACI.
For each human being in the world, approximately ten land-based farmed animals are killed for food per year. The number varies considerably from country to country. It is less than one in Kenya and as high as 38 in Belarus. Nine of the ten countries which kill the fewest animals per person are low or middle income nations. Japan, a high income country, ranks 8th as it relies on marine life for much of its animal protein consumption.
Consuming cruelty levels are crucially dependent on dietary choices. On average, world consumption of land-based animals accounts for 35% of protein use. This share varies widely from less than 10% in Nigeria to almost 64% in Australia. Here again, low and medium income countries rank ahead of high income nations. Nine of the ten countries ranked at the bottom of the scale are high income.
Human beings consume about 27g of farmed animal protein per capita per day on average but there is a wide variation among countries – from a low of less than 5g in Nigeria to around 68g in the United States. The share of meat in the farmed animal protein diet averages 57% for the world while dairy and eggs account for a share of 32% and 11% respectively. Here again, the shares vary considerably from country to country. The share of meat in the farmed animal protein diet is highest in Vietnam (87%) and lowest in India (12%) while the share of dairy is highest in India (81%) and lowest in Vietnam (7%) and the share of eggs varies from less than 1% in Niger to 24% in Thailand.
Table E ranks 50 countries according to the number of live animals they export each year. It partially addresses a cruelty dimension not adequately captured in the producing cruelty dimension of the VACI.