POLAND, Warsaw. Since ASF became widespread in Poland, the number of pig farmers has almost halved. Nevertheless, the animal population shrank only slightly.
African swine fever and turbulent markets have apparently caused many Polish pig farmers to give up over the past seven years. According to Warsaw's agriculture ministry, in 2014 - when the highly contagious animal disease was first detected in Poland - there had still been 179,000 individual domestic pig herds nationwide, with a total of around 10.5 million animals, which meant an average of 59 pigs per herd. By 2019, the number of pig herds had fallen to 116,000. By mid-2021, officials counted about 92,000 farms with pigs, down nearly half from 2014.