Biggest decrease in pigs
Germany produces significantly less meat
02/08/2023 10:09 am
Meat production in Germany continues to fall, in 2022 more than ever before. However, hundreds of millions of animals are still being killed in this country. The decline in pigs is particularly large, which is probably mainly due to the significantly reduced stock in Germany.
Meat production in Germany fell sharply last year. The commercial slaughterhouses produced 7 million tons of meat, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden. That was a good eight percent or 0.6 million tons less than in 2021. This means that meat production in Germany has fallen every year since the record year 2016 (8.3 million tons), “but never as much as in 2022,” according to the statisticians.
A total of 51.2 million pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and horses and 701.4 million chickens, turkeys and ducks were slaughtered in the slaughterhouses. With 47 million animals slaughtered, the number of pigs killed fell particularly sharply by 9.2 percent – a drop of 4.8 million animals. In total, the slaughterhouses produced around 4.5 million tons of pork, almost ten percent less than in the previous year.
In the medium term, the minus is even clearer: compared to 2016, almost a fifth less pork was produced. One reason for this is declining pig stocks in Germany, it said. In 2022, the number of pigs kept in Germany had fallen to its lowest level since reunification in 1990. The consumption of pork in this country has been declining for years. In addition, many farms are struggling with the increased costs for energy, fertilizer and feed.
According to the 2022 statistics, the number of cattle slaughtered also fell sharply by 7.8 percent to almost 3.0 million animals. The slaughtered quantity fell by 8.2 percent to 985,000 tons of beef compared to the previous year. The amount of poultry meat produced fell less sharply. It fell by 2.9 percent to a good 1.5 million tons.