How to Do Animal Rights - Pig & Hog Statistics

Chapter 6

Pig & Hog Statistics

Summary

People keep at least 2,000,000,000 pigs worldwide (Table 1).
At least half the world's pigs live in China and 85 percent of pigs live in three countries: China, European Union and United States (Table 1).
People kill about 1,200,000,000 pigs annually worldwide, an average of 23 million pigs a week (Table 2).
About 85 per cent of the world's pigs die in three countries: China (12 million per week), European Union (five million per week) and United States (two million per week) (Table 2).
The Chinese kill most pigs, about 50 percent of pigs slaughtered worldwide (Table 2).

(Caption for translation: Think before you eat. Your tummy cost their lives. Humans kill billions of food animals annually. 2 million pigs per week in the US. 12 million pigs per week in China.)

Pigs People Keep

Table 1. Total Number of Pigs People Keep Worldwide. Top ten countries & Worldwide for years 2003 to 2008. Figures are in millions.
	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
China	1,061	1,103	1,167	1,183	1,124	1,119
European Union - 27	422	415	414	416	420	419
United States	161	163	165	167	171	174
Brazil	62	62	65	66	69	70
Russian Federation	52	52	52	54	56	60
Canada	46	48	48	48	47	46
Mexico	26	26	26	26	26	26
Japan	27	27	27	27	27	27
Korea Republic	24	23	22	22	23	23
Ukraine	16	14	13	15	16	17
Others	119	126	134	139	144	145
World Total	2,017	2,059	2,132	2,162	2,122	1,995

Source: Live Swine Selected Countries Summary. Production (Pig Crop), and Total Beginning Stocks. In Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade. United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service. www.fas.usda.gov. (Web site accessed February 2008.)

Pig

Pigs People Kill

Table 2. Number of Pigs People Kill Worldwide. Top ten countries & Worldwide for years 2003 to 2008. Figures are in millions.
	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
China	598	637	685	680	630	649
European Union - 27	262	256	257	259	260	259
United States	102	103	104	106	108	110
Russian Federation	35	35	36	37	39	42
Brazil	30	30	32	33	36	36
Canada	31	33	33	32	32	31
Japan	17	17	17	17	17	17
Mexico	15	15	16	16	16	16
Korea Republic	16	15	14	14	15	15
Ukraine	7	6	7	8	8	8
Others	72	77	84	87	90	90
World Total	1,185	1,225	1,285	1,288	1,250	1,192

Source: same as for Table 1.

Pig

Notes for the Tables

Figures in these tables are derived from the USDA (see Source, below the tables). USDA state that their data are based on �USDA-FAS attache reports, official statistics, and results of office research� and that their data include only those countries which are the major animal producers. World Total, therefore, is a minimum figure, less than the actual total.

The USDA provide two sets of figures in their original data: 'Total Beginning Stocks' and 'Production Crop'. Beginning Stocks are the animals alive at the start of the year and breed the Production Crop. The number of Beginning Stocks remain roughly constant from year to year and it is largely the Production Crop that is slaughtered. Pig numbers include both classes of pig and should give an estimate of the total number of pigs in countries.

Livestock are impossible to count accurately; therefore I have rounded the figures in this table to avoid spurious accuracy and totals may not necessarily add up exactly.

Other Useful Sources

As well as USDA data, you may find these online statistical sources useful:

Earth Trends, the World Resources Institute. Agriculture and Food - Livestock: Swine stocks. www.wri.org. Earth Trends obtain their data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Be aware, however, that FAO figures are from �spot counts�. A spot count is a census of animals on one day in the year (eg 1 July or 31 December). The method does not count all the animals born during the year (animals may have died before the spot count or were born after it and not counted). Therefore FAO figures consistently underestimate the total number of animals alive during the course of a year.

China Statistical Yearbook. Number of Livestock. National Bureau of Statistics of China. www.stats.gov.cn. The USDA data above on pig numbers and slaughter agree reasonably well with data about pigs in China, differing by plus or minus a few million pigs for each year data is given.

What squeaks and weighs over a 100 million tonnes? Click to enlarge.

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