How Many Animals Do We Eat Each Year?

Across the world, billions of animals are slaughtered for meat every year. According to UN Food and Agriculture Organization data published in 2017, pigs are by far the most slaughtered livestock animal excluding poultry. In 2014, the most recent year data is available, 1.47 billion pigs were killed for their meat. Sheep came second with 545 million slaughtered, followed by goats (444 million) and cattle (300 million). The following infographic hows how the number of livestock animals slaughtered (pigs in particular) has climbed steadily since the 1960s.