Economy

Ukraine has lost 2 million pigs: pig production has rolled back for decades

EXCLUSIVE

After the African swine fever epidemic, Ukraine lost almost 2 million pigs. Mykola Babenko, chairman of the Meat Industry Association, said this in an interview with the Kommersant Ukrainian YouTube channel.

“Ukraine has lost 2 million pigs, which is almost as much as the whole world has lost in 7 years. This is a huge scale,” he emphasized.

Babenko reminded that until 2014 Ukraine was among the top 10 pork importers in the world. In 2022, the war and rising prices made imports economically unprofitable.

“A large number of consumers left the country, and domestic production met the needs for some time. But after the losses of 2024, the situation changed dramatically,” he explained.

According to the expert, Ukraine is now once again dependent on supplies from the EU, in particular, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany.

As [Komersant] wrote, Ukraine is the first in the EU in terms of chicken exports.

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