Point of view: Denmark, boom in farms with 2000 or more sows

Danish pig farms underwent a radical transformation in the 2000s, driven by the exponential rise in piglet imports from Germany and national environmental constraints. Mostly farrow-to-finish in 2000 (60% of farms and 75% of sows), with an average size of 180 sows, Danish pig farms have moved towards a separation of farrowing and fattening, with farrowers (23% of farms and 52% of sows) averaging 967 sows in 2022, and fatteners (49% of farms and 59% of pigs produced) averaging 9,422 pigs in 2022.

Intense in the 2000s, structural concentration has slowed: after being divided by three between 2000 and 2010, the number of sow farms in Denmark is set to fall from 2,582 to 1,298 (-50%) between 2010 and 2022. After