Asia-Pacific
Europe
Latin America
North America
European Union member states generally lost sows last year and this was
particularly true for those in the centre/east of Europe, but it was counterbalanced
by another year of expansion in Russia.
member states generally lost sows last
year and this was particularly true for
those in the centre/east of Europe, but it
was counterbalanced by another year of
expansion in Russia. The apparent Latin
American trend for sow numbers was
influenced heavily by a reduction in Brazil.
Among the Asia-Pacific countries there
were more sows in China and Vietnam, but
fewer in Korea, Taiwan and Australia.
Note that our Table continues to list
the European Union members individually
in order to highlight their relative size.
For the record, the combined total of
sows in all EU- 27 states amounted to
15.12 million in the year 2000 before
growing to approximately 15.6 million in
both 2003 and 2006. Afterwards came
successive reductions for EU herds, down
to less than 15 million sows in 2007 and
then under 14 million in 2008. The total
proposed officially for 2009 was just
13.824 million.
Even with the continued improvements
being made in the average number of pigs
sold per sow/year, inevitably there have
been signals in 2010 of a relative shortage
of slaughter pigs on the European market.
It has yet to be echoed fully in other places,
although this year’s price levels in the
US have shown the effects of reduced
supplies from fewer sows.
It does seem from Table 1 that the
number of sows for the 30 largest national
herds worldwide hardly changed last year.
July/August 2010 | www.WATTAgNet.com
As always, however, the figures underline
that there were individual exceptions to the
general trend. Notable among them was
the further cut in the size of Canada’s pig
breeding herd so that the Canadian entry
on our list has dropped from ninth place to
eleventh. But the most influential change
has to be the reduction indicated for China,
losing one million sows in one year.
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