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Explainer
More Pigs Than People in Spain
There are 3.5 million more pigs than people in Spain, an increase of about 9 million pigs since 2013. Spaniards consume almost 50 pounds of pork per year, which all helps to make livestock the fourth largest generator of greenhouse gases in the world. Plus, pig farming is an expensive endeavor. Farrow-to-feeder operations, where sows are raised to give birth to more pigs, require as much as 5,000 pounds of food and 2,100 gallons of water every week for just 20 sows. There's more! Read our FAQ piece on how a hog farm works.
Words by Sentient Media
There are 3.5 million more pigs than people in Spain, an increase of about 9 million pigs since 2013. Spaniards consume almost 50 pounds of pork per year, which all helps to make livestock the fourth largest generator of greenhouse gases in the world.
Plus, pig farming is an expensive endeavor. Farrow-to-feeder operations, where sows are raised to give birth to more pigs, require as much as 5,000 pounds of food and 2,100 gallons of water every week for just 20 sows.
There’s more! Read our FAQ piece on how a hog farm works.
And here’s your 5-A-Day:
- 🚜 Agriculture is the third largest U.S. export. Farmers have won out recently, collecting $123.8 billion in 2013. But that makes this year’s $60 billion harvest look dismal. [Bloomberg]
- 🐷 550,000 pork producers are hurting, too. And to save their skin, they’re going after animal welfare proponents, clean meat manufacturers, gene editors, and really, anyone trying to do anything besides fill a trough with slop. [National Pork Producers]
- 🧐 The green energy you’re using might be coming from a pig farm. Take a look at a farm with about 8,000 pigs providing slurry to a green power plant down the road. [Huffington Post]
- 💡 The world’s first floating farm will house 40 cows in a pasture-like garden near Rotterdam, NL. Oh, and the cows will be milked by robots. [Climate Action]
- 😍 One sick pig raised half-a-million dollars to bring a 600-pound-pig-sized CT Scanner to Canada. The Esther Scanner organization will offer free scans to all animals in need. [Independent Free Press]
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Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals. Pig on factory farm in Spain, 2011.
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