Claim
Around 85 billion land animals are slaughtered for food each year worldwide, the large majority of them chickens.
About ten land animals per person per year, most of them chickens. Fish are not counted individually, but likely add far more.
Why this rating: Based on official production statistics reported by almost every country.
Supported by multiple systematic reviews or large, consistent studies using different methods, with few plausible alternative explanations.
Explanation
Chickens dominate the count because they are small, grow quickly and are eaten in huge numbers.
Official statistics count fish by tonnage rather than by individual, so the total for all animals is much higher but less certain.
Limitations
- National reporting quality varies; backyard and informal slaughter is under-counted.
Methodology
- FAO compiles national statistics of animals slaughtered for meat.
Sources for this claim
Each source links to our record of what it found, its limitations and what we used it for, with a link to the original.
- 1FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products — producing animals / slaughtered
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024). FAOSTAT database.
- 2Estimating global numbers of farmed fishes killed for food annually from 1990 to 2019
Alison Mood, Elena Lara, Natasha Boyland and Phil Brooke (2023). .
- 3Estimating the number of fish caught in global fishing each year
Alison Mood and Phil Brooke, Fishcount (2020). .