Behind the numbers: The true scale of animal agriculture in the UK

Concentrated in regional pockets and behind the walls of industrial farms, the sheer scale of animal agriculture in the UK is too often overlooked and too easily disregarded. However, only by considering just how many animals are farmed across the UK can we properly assess what this means for each individual. 

As of June 2024, there were over 9.4 million cows and calves, 4.7 million pigs, 31 million sheep and lambs and 176 million chickens and turkeys on UK farms. Of these over 85% are confined in industrial farming systems. 

This is over 221 million animals who at any given moment are living and dying in the UK farming system.

Whilst vast, these point-in-time population figures pale in comparison to the number of farmed animals slaughtered each year – many farmed animals are slaughtered under a year old. For example, chickens primarily raised for meat, or ‘broiler chickens’ who make up over 90% of animals slaughtered in the UK, live on average just 40 days. 

While the current population of broiler chickens in the UK is 112 million, the rapid rate at which they have been bred to reach slaughter weight means that approximately 1.15 billion chickens are raised and slaughtered for meat in the UK each year. Just one daily reality for the life an individual lives when farmed within the UK is illustrated by a recent dilution of their legal protections, where the UK government legalised lifting them by their legs. Chickens are highly distressed by being held upside down, as they do not have a diaphragm and are therefore unable to breathe while inverted. The Animal Law Foundation is fighting this dilution in the High Court in February. 

Across the UK, approximately 10 million pigs are slaughtered each year. Approximately 72% or 7.2 million of these pigs are subject to mutilation by way of tail docking. UK law prohibits tail docking occurring routinely, and it is only permitted as a last resort. Despoite this, we have found that the prevalence of this painful practice in the industry appears to tell a different story.

One group missing from these figures are the fish farmed in the UK. While fish are recognised as sentient under the law, statistics for farmed fish are measured in tonnes, instead of individual lives. Across the UK, 203,000 tonnes of farmed finfish are killed for food annually, representing an estimated 42-59 million fish. Every individual farmed fish is protected under the law from unnecessary suffering and must have their welfare needs met; however, farmers have long operated without official government guidance telling them how to comply with the legal protections, which in turn has made it difficult to enforce the law where breaches may have occurred. Recently, following our work calling for this guidance, the Scottish Government has committed to producing it. 

Each one of these billion animals are protected by legal and regulatory frameworks enacted by parliament primarily to prevent unnecessary suffering and secure minimum conditions for these animals throughout their lives. However, our research has shown a profound lack of oversight and enforcement of these laws. Data we collected from 2023 found that just 2.53% of farms were inspected across the UK. Additionally, in the face of resourcing constraints, even where non-compliance with animal welfare law is identified, local authorities appear reluctant to take formal enforcement action. In 2023, prosecutions were commenced in less than 1% of the cases where non-compliance with animal welfare law was identified by inspectors. Without enforcement, the protections which exist on paper are rendered impotent, meaning that the number of potential victims suffering at the hands of criminal activity is on a scale unmatched. 

For The Animal Law Foundation, these numbers bring the urgency of our work into sharp focus. The over a billion animals farmed in the UK each year deserve the realisation of the law’s protections. This is why we work to ensure the laws that were enacted to protect farmed animals are understood and properly enforced.