Pig Welfare at Scale Advanced | Animal Welfare Hub

Advanced thinking about pig welfare at scale addresses the ethical and practical challenges of improving welfare for the 1.4 billion pigs produced annually while navigating global trade and production system diversity.

Key Facts

Global pig production is concentrated in China, the EU, and the USA which produce 70% of global pork
Trade agreements that do not include welfare standards create unfair competition for high-welfare producers
Digital tools enabling welfare monitoring at scale are reducing the cost per animal of welfare assessment
Scale creates both challenges and opportunities: small percentage improvements affect millions of animals
Systems thinking approaches to pig welfare identify leverage points where changes propagate at scale

Welfare Considerations

The scale of global pig production means that even modest proportional welfare improvements affect millions of animals annually. Identifying and investing in high-leverage interventions that can propagate at scale - regulatory floors, retailer commitments, digital monitoring tools - delivers welfare benefits proportional to global reach. Welfare advocacy that ignores scale considerations misses opportunities to multiply welfare impact.

What You Can Do

Support international trade policy that includes welfare standards
Advocate for digital monitoring technology that makes welfare assessment cost-effective at scale
Engage with welfare at scale thinking in your advocacy and purchasing choices