HAMBURG, Dec 22 (Reuters) – The number pigs on German farms has fallen to the lowest in 25 years and more farmers are giving up pig keeping because of weak demand and low pork prices, Germany’s national statistics office said on Wednesday.
The number of pigs on German farms in November 2021 fell 9.4% on the year to around 2.45 million animals, the agency said, the lowest since 1996.
Some 18,800 German farms were involved in pig production in November, down 7.8% on the year. The number of pig farms has fallen by 39.1% in the past ten years.
“The reasons include the low demand from retailers and for export along with low pork prices,” the office said.
Germany’s pork market has suffered this year from the continuing disruption to exports from the pig disease African swine fever (ASF), anti-pandemic lockdowns which reduced demand in restaurants, retailing and the hospitality sector, plus a general trend away from meat eating.
China and other buyers banned imports of German pork in September 2020 after the first case of ASF was confirmed in wild boar in east Germany near the border with Poland, but German pork sales inside Europe continue.
German pig prices have hardly changed this year, currently around 1.23 euros a kg slaughter weight. But this is well down from 1.47 euros a kg before the first ASF case in September 2020.
Cutting the numbers of wild boar will be critical to combatting ASF in Germany, the country’s newly-appointed junior agriculture minister said last week.
There have now been some 3,010 ASF cases in wild boar in the eastern German states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern all near to the Polish border, where wild boar coming from Poland have helped spread swine fever.
(Reporting by Michael Hogan Editing by Mark Potter)
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