Over the course of two years, the number of farms keeping pigs in an organic system decreased by 20%. On the other hand, the number of pigs kept in this system has increased, although it must be said clearly – it is symbolic.
Organic pig farming has never been more popular in our country. There are several reasons for this state of affairs and, contrary to appearances, the fault lies not only with the processing plants. As Wojciech Głąb (COBICO Certification Office) said in a conversation in 2021, there are processing plants in the country that would be happy to buy meat from organic production, because it would be a great differentiator for their products. However, the problem is the supply of this type of raw material: for production to make sense, constant access to a certain amount of raw material is needed, which is difficult given the high fragmentation of production. It seems that ASF is an equally big problem, as it does not encourage farmers to continue pig production. On the other hand, disease-free regions (Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Łódź, Silesia) are marginal in organic production. So where is the truth? Probably in the middle.
How many organic farms keep pigs?
It’s hard to disagree with this thesis. To confirm it, it is worth presenting data on organic pig production, which we received courtesy of IJHARS. Unfortunately, these are not entirely up-to-date data (as at the end of 2022), but the latest available to the Inspection. What do they mean?
According to data as of December 31, 2022, there were 79 farms in Poland keeping pigs in an organic system. Compared to 2020, this is a decrease of almost ¼, and according to 2019, the number of herds decreased by almost 70%. However, compared to the end of 2020, the number of pigs kept in herds managed in an organic system has increased. At the end of 2022, it amounted to 4,443 pigs compared to 3,253 animals in December 2020 and 4,171 in December 2019.
The average size of the herd producing in the organic system was 56 pigs in 2022, compared to 32 animals in December 2020 and 17 animals at the end of 2019. This clearly indicates that mainly herds of several pigs have disappeared from the market.
Three regions are leading in organic pig production
It is worth presenting the ecological production of pigs in individual regions. The trend observed in previous years is repeated here: this production is dominated by three voivodeships: Lesser Poland, Podkarpackie and Świętokrzyskie. They contain nearly 60 percent. all herds. By the way, this does not completely correspond to the total pig production, because in the national structure of pig production these regions play a marginal role (in total, they account for just over 14% of the national herds, supporting less than 4% of the population). Number of herds in individual voivodeships is presented in the table below. These are data provided by IJHARS.
| Voivodeship | 31.12.2019 | 31.12.2020 | 31.12.2022 |
| Lower Silesia |
11
|
4 | 0 |
| Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship | 9 | 8 | 6 |
| Lubelskie | 8 | 10 | 8 |
| Lubuskie | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Łódź Province | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Lesser Poland | 75 | 21 | 12 |
| Masovian Voivodeship | 11 | 7 | 6 |
| Opole Voivodeship | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| Podkarpackie | 64 | 13 | 10 |
| Podlasie | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Pomeranian Voivodeship | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| Silesian | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| Świętokrzyskie | 23 | 21 | 24 |
| Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Greater Poland | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| West Pomeranian | 13 | 6 | 1 |
| Together | 244 | 103 | 79 |
Organic farming is a niche
It is also worth referring to the data showing what percentage of domestic farms are organic herds. According to data from the IRZ ARiMR system, at the end of 2022 there were approximately 56.1 thousand in Poland. pig herds supporting a total of 8.9 million animals. Comparing this with IJHARS data, we see that organic farms accounted for 0.15%. all farms. They maintained 0.05 percent. all the pigs in the country
The Agricultural and Food Quality Inspection assured us that data for 2023 will be available by the end of the first half of the year, then we will compare them with the data from previous years.
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