50 billion animals slaughtered per year
2003-03-10

There are many different references as to the exact number of livestock animals in the world. Naturally, one will get different figures depending on what animals are counted. If poultry are included the figure gets as high as 50 billion per year. According to the FAO Database; FAOSTAT, Agriculture Data the statistics for 2002 go as follows:  

Poultry:  47,5 billion
Pigs: 1,2 billion
Sheep and goat: 822 million
Turkey: 664 million
Veal and buffalo: 303 million

Jens Holm
holmjens@hotmail.com


Slaughtered animals divided by main countries

Chicken
World 47,5 billion
China 9,1 billion
USA 9,1 billion
Brazil 5 billion
France 1,1 billion
Mexiko 1,1 billion
Thailand 1,1 billion
Indonesia 1,1 billion
 
Sweden 79 million
Pigs
World 1,2 billion
China 580 million
USA 100 million
Germany 44 million
Spain 36 million
France 27 million
Denmark 22 million
 
Sweden 3,2 million
Sheep and goat
World 822 million
China 223 million
India 66 million
Australia 33 million
Pakistan 31 million
New Zealand 31 million
Iran 29 million
 
Sweden 193 000
Turkey
World  664 million
USA 270 million
France 118 million
 
Sweden 650 000

Veal and buffalo
World 303 million
USA 37 million
Brazil 33 million
India 25 million
Argentina 13 million
Russia 12 million
 
Sweden 500 000
 

Source: 
FAO, FAOSTAT, Agriculture Data,
http://apps.fao.org/default.htm

Footnote:
These figures may appear high, but they correspond well with statistics on meat from e.g. FAOs Food Outlook. By dividing the total production of e.g. poultry meat; 72.1 million tonnes with the weight of a slaughtered broiler chicken (approx. 1,5 kgs), one will arrive at a total number of 48 billion individuals or the 93.3 million tonnes of pork meat with 85 kgs (the meat from a slaughtered pig) and one gets around 1.1 billion pigs.

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