Pigs

Around half of the meat consumed in the world is pork, with over 150 million pigs reared each year in the European Union for meat. In the UK, around nine million pigs are slaughtered annually, whilst there are approximately 450,000 breeding pigs (sows, gilts and boars). 

There are many ways of housing and raising pigs, including both indoor and outdoor systems. Both can provide good living conditions, but some farming methods have ignored the pigs’ needs by treating them as production units rather than fascinating and intelligent creatures with important behavioural and physical needs.
 

We’re working in lots of different ways to try to improve the conditions in which all pigs are reared, transported and slaughtered.

As well as the information on these pages, we've also produced a detailed downloadable Welfare of Pigs Information Sheet Jan 2009 (PDF 1.46MB)