According to the preliminary results of the pig population survey published by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the pig population in Germany fell significantly again as of May 3, 2022 and is at its lowest level since German reunification in 1990 – i.e. for more than 30 years. A total of 22.3 million pigs are currently kept, which is 6.2% or 1.48 million fewer animals compared to the livestock survey on November 3, 2021. As Destatis reports, this is the third significant decline in a row. Compared to the previous year's value of May 3, 2021, the stock has decreased by 9.8% or 2.42 million animals.

Not only is the pig population declining, more and more pig farmers are giving up their businesses. As of May 3, 2022, there were 17,900 pig farms. That was 5.2% or 1,000 farms fewer than in November 2021. In the past six months, the German pig population has therefore declined more in percentage terms than the number of farms. Compared to the previous year, the decline in pig-keeping farms was 9.6% (1,900 farms).

The ten-year comparison also shows the decreasing trends in the pigs and farms kept: the number of pigs has fallen by 20.8% or 5.8 million animals since 2012, while the number of farms has even fallen by 41.0% (12,000 farms ) decreased. Since the number of farms has decreased more than the number of pigs kept, the average pig population has increased from 929 to 1,248 pigs per farm over the past ten years.