Source record
FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products — producing animals / slaughtered
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024). FAOSTAT database. FAO.
Key findings
- Around 85 billion land animals are slaughtered for meat each year, the large majority of them chickens.
Record
- Source type
- Government Statistics
- Study type
- Census
- Topics
- Scale
- Geography
- Global, by country
- Funding & conflicts
- Not recorded.
- Source quality
- Strong evidenceOfficial international statistics, the standard reference for this figure.
Limitations
- Relies on national reporting of varying quality; fish are counted by weight, not by individual animal.
Statistics we use from this source
- 85billionLand animals slaughtered for meat each year
- 77billion per yearChickens
- 1.5billion per yearPigs
- 1.3billion per yearSheep & goats
- 0.3billion per yearCattle
Claims this source supports
AnimalsStrong evidence
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.
Cite this record
FAOSTAT: Crops and livestock products — producing animals / slaughtered. The Balance of Health. https://thebalanceofhealth.com/sources/fao-faostat-livestock-primary-production