0
According to the FranceAgriMer report "Dairy, meat and poultry markets, balance sheet 2022, outlook 2023", the 2020 agricultural census figures reveal a 28% decrease in the number of medium and large farms over ten years, which is related to farmers retiring without anyone taking their place. The impact of the conflict in Ukraine, which has increased already high production costs (feed, energy, etc.), has also had a negative impact on less productive farms.
The French swine industry has lost 24,000 sows, i.e. 2.5% of its breeding herd, which is now close to 900,000 head. This is an continuing, long-term trend (-200,000 sows since 2012, i.e. -18%). The total number of pigs, with respect to 2021, has seen a similar decrease (-326,000 head, i.e. -2.5%).
Since 2012, the slaughter in France has decreased by 5.3%, i.e. a loss of 1.3 million pigs between 2012 (24.1 million head) and 2022 (22.8 million head).
Carcass weights, which in 2021 were still slightly up (94.6 kg), fell back in 2022 (93.7 kg). This breaks an almost continuous 10-year trend and testifies to a tense market situation due to decreasing supply but also to a drought effect that affected the growth of pigs during the summer. Consequently, compared to 2021, slaughter decreased more in volume (-2.3%) than in the number of heads (-1.4%).
With pork production down to 2.2 million tons carcass weight equivalent (CWE) in 2022, France nevertheless remains the third largest European producer, behind Spain (5.2 million CWE, +0.2%) and Germany (4.6 million CWE, -8.3%).
February 2023/ Dairy, Meat and Poultry Markets, 2022 Review, 2023 Outlook/ FranceAgriMer.
https://www.franceagrimer.fr/
