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Pig meat production in the European Union-27: current status, challenges, and future trends
Publicated to:Animal Bioscience. 37 (4): 755-774 - 2024-04-01 37(4), DOI: 10.5713/ab.23.0496
Authors: Mateos, GG; Corrales, NL; Talegón, G; Aguirre, L
Affiliations
Abstract
The main objective of this study was to present data on the current situation and future trends of pig meat production in the European Union -27 (EU). Pig production has played an important social and economic role for centuries in many states of the EU. In 2022, pig meat production in the EU reached 23 M tons, which represented 21% of total production worldwide. The two key reasons that justify such amount of pork produced, are the acceptance and high consumption of the meat by the local population and the high quality of the meat produced which facilitated pork export. However, current data show a reduction in pork production for the last three years, as a consequence of a series of events that include i) problems with the chain of ingredients supply, ii) uncontrolled increase in African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreaks, iii) fast recovery of pig production in China, iv) increasing concerns by the rural population on the high cost to meet future requirements of the EU legislation on farm management, environmental sustainability and animal welfare, v) increased cost of all inputs involved in pig production and vi) limited interest of the new farmer generation to work on the pig sector. Consequently, pork production is expected to decrease in the EU for the next years, although sales will be maintained at a relative high level because pork is the meat preferred by local consumers in most EU countries. In order to maintain the favourable position of the pork industry in the near future, strategies to implement include: i) maintain the quality of the meat destinated to export markets, ii) improve the control of outbreaks of ASF and other swine diseases, iii) implementation of technological innovations to improve working conditions making more attractive to work in the pork sector of the food chain to the new generation of farmers and workers.
Keywords
Quality index
Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Animal Bioscience due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2024 there are still no calculated indicators, but in 2023, it was in position 17/86, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science.
Independientemente del impacto esperado determinado por el canal de difusión, es importante destacar el impacto real observado de la propia aportación.
Según las diferentes agencias de indexación, el número de citas acumuladas por esta publicación hasta la fecha 2025-07-26:
- WoS: 6
- Scopus: 10
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (GONZALEZ MATEOS, GONZALO) and Last Author (AGUIRRE TORIBIO, LEWIS ALFONSO).
the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been GONZALEZ MATEOS, GONZALO.