April 8, 2024

Germany's number of livestock farms dropped by around 4% between 2020 and 2023

Germany had around 161,700 livestock farms as of March 1, 2023, according to the country's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).

Based on the final results of a 2023 agricultural structure survey, the number of livestock farms fell by around 4%, or 7,100 farms, between 2020 (around 168,800 farms) and 2023.

Last year, 63% of the approximate total of 255,000 farms in Germany kept livestock. The proportion of livestock farms thus remained almost constant compared to 2020 (64%).

27,600 farms in Germany kept a total of 22.4 million pigs as of March 1, 2023.

Three years earlier, there were 31,900 farms with 26.3 million pigs. The number of pig farms has thus fallen by 4,300 or 13% in three years.

Germany's pig population decreased by 15% or 3.9 million animals between 2020 and 2023, with the average number of animals per farm falling from 826 to 810.

Well over half (62%) of all pigs in Germany are kept in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

- Destatis