With decreasing pigs and poultry livestock, Romania ranks high in EU for its sheep

Romania saw an increasing number of cattle, sheep and goats, while witnessing a decreasing number of poultry and pigs in 2013, statistics show. Compared to other EU countries, Romania’s livestock per 100 hectares of land still lags behind in some sectors. The number of sheep and goats however rank Romania quite high in the EU, statistics show. The country had 2 million cattle end-2013, an increase of some 13,000. It also reported 10.4 million sheep, a growth of 346,000 sheep compared to the end of 2012. Numbers show that in Romania, a country of 21 million people, every two Romanians own a sheep. In reality however, sheep herds include tens to hundreds of sheep, and are mostly owned by people who live in rural areas. Romania’s cattle livestock reached a peak in 2006, when the country had 3 million cows; the number went down significantly until 2010, after which it started to slowly pick up again. This translated into 14.9 cattle per 100 hectares of land, one of the most modest numbers in the EU. Ireland had the biggest number – 139.2 cattle per 100 hectares. Lower than Romania was Bulgaria – 12 cows at 100 hectares of land. Hungary fared slightly better – 15.2 cattle at 100 hectares. In the last seven years, the pig livestock went down constantly. In 2013, the number was down by a quarter compared to 2006. Despite the drop, Romania still ranks well in the EU on the number of pigs at 100 hectares of land – 58.9, better than in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden. It was however far from the EU leaders on pigs – the Netherlands, with 1,200 pigs at 100 hectares, and Denmark, 509 pigs. The results for Romania however show growth for sheep and goat livestock, which was of 10.1 million heads in 2009, and which went up constantly to date. These were also mirrored in the EU ranking, with Romania at number four for its number of sheep. It ranked sixth with its 77.2 sheep and goats per 100 hectares. This was almost twice the number for Bulgaria, more than ten times the number in the Czech Republic, seven times the one in Germany, double the one in France, and higher than in Italy. Better than Romania fared Greece – number one, with 495 sheep per 100 hectares, UK, with 132 sheep per 100 hectares, Spain, The Netherlands and Portugal. Meanwhile, the number of poultry decreased significantly – down by almost 700,000, to some 79.4 million. The country saw constant year-on-year decreases in this livestock. The number of poultry was 6.5 percent lower in 2013 than in 2006. The full statistics are here (in pdf, in English). Corina Chirileasa, corina@romania-insider.com