In Italy 500 animals die per minute:the numbers behind the meat industry

Since the beginning of 2024, over 54 million animals have been slaughtered for meat consumption in Italy alone, including cows, calves, chickens, turkeys, pigs and lambs.

The data from the beginning of the year to today records 675 thousand animals slaughtered per day, almost five hundred animals per minute.

Last year they were almost 620 million, not to mention the millions of fish killed by the fishing industry.These are enormous numbers that hide the extreme suffering he suffers animals raised for food purposes they suffer every day due to exploitation and coercion.

Behind the killing of animals intended for food consumption there is a life spent in overcrowded farms, often spent most of the time in a cage, approximately forty million animals in fact, in Europe they still live today locked up in cages so small that they prevent any movement.

As Animal Equality we have long denounced the abuse suffered by animals by the meat industry in Italy and around the world diseases, genetic mistreatment, violence and abuse.In some cases these cruelties do not even have legal limits, as in the case of fish.

The industry ofaquaculture forces these animals to live in extreme overcrowded conditions that make the fish stressed and aggressive, and then condemns them to be slaughtered, even without stunning.

As we documented in one of our investigations in Scotland, the salmon, for example, are beaten until they die.In other cases, their gills are exported when these animals are still conscious.

As if that wasn't enough, every day millions of animals killed for food end up in landfill.Yes, because the meat industry is also responsible for sending people to the slaughterhouse animals that will never be consumed.Second a study conducted by Leiden University in the Netherlands, 52.4 million tonnes of meat are sent to pulp every year.This equates to 18 billion animals, particularly chickens and cattle, being raised and killed and then thrown away.

The farming and brutal killing that the meat industry hides from consumers is unacceptable.

What do European citizens think?

The European Commission's 2023 Eurobarometer found that the vast majority of European citizens want that the welfare of farmed animals for food purposes is greater.

In particular, 94 percent of Europeans and 93 percent of Italians believe that animals need an environment suited to their basic needs.89 percent of Europeans want the European Union to put an end to mutilation, along with 91 percent of those surveyed in Italy.89 percent of European citizens and 91 percent of Italian ones is also in favor of banning the breeding of animals in single cages.

In short, animals they deserve better and their living conditions also depend on our choices of critical and conscious consumption.For this reason, choosing to reduce or completely eliminate the consumption of meat and other animal products can make a difference.