Welfare Science

Animal Welfare: Farmed Animal Numbers and Scale

Understanding the scale of farmed animal populations is essential context for prioritising welfare interventions by potential impact.

Key Facts

Approximately 70 billion land animals are slaughtered for food globally each year
The majority of farmed animals are poultry, with over 60 billion chickens slaughtered annually
Over 1.3 billion pigs and 300 million cattle are slaughtered each year globally
Marine fish catch alone may represent over 1 trillion individual animals annually

Welfare Considerations

The scale of animal farming is almost incomprehensibly large. Understanding this scale is not about numbing to the numbers but about prioritising welfare interventions by potential impact. Systemic interventions that affect the most numerous species in the worst conditions offer the greatest welfare return on investment.

What You Can Do

Prioritise welfare advocacy and consumption choices by potential impact on animal numbers
Support organisations working on the most neglected, highest-scale welfare problems
Engage with welfare research that quantifies the scale of suffering to inform priority-setting