Danish pig farmers are currently losing between 350 and 400 kroner on every slaughter pig they send to the abattoir, according to new model calculations from Seges Innovation.
Producing slaughter pigs in Denmark does not pay at the moment, DR reported on Thursday, August 20. The figures come from model calculations that the farming sector’s research unit Seges Innovation prepared for DR.
The losses arise because costs for feed, employees and mortgage payments exceed the price farmers receive from the slaughterhouse. Esper Goul Jensen, who runs pig operations in central and western Jutland with close to 320,000 slaughter pigs a year, called the situation a catastrophe. He is now scaling back and slaughtering every tenth sow to cut piglet numbers, and DR reports that other large producers are doing the same.
Danish Crown sets the weekly pork price that other Danish slaughterhouses follow. For the past four weeks that price has been 6.90 kroner per kilo, a level described as historically low.
Jakob Vesterlund Olsen, an agricultural economist and senior adviser at the University of Copenhagen, told DR the prices are unusually low, particularly when inflation is taken into account. Similar nominal levels were seen in 1999 and in the late 1970s, but production costs were far lower then.
According to Olsen, the crisis is driven by a large volume of pork on the European market after two to three years of relatively high prices led some producers to expand. An outbreak of African swine fever in Spain has closed Spanish exports to Asia, leaving that meat in Europe, while Brazil, the United States and China have taken over Asian markets. Olsen said the situation cannot continue much longer before bankruptcies follow.
Seges chief economist Allan Høegsberg estimated the average loss since the start of 2026 at about 250 kroner per slaughter pig from birth to slaughter, because prices were higher earlier in the year. A Seges Innovation forecast published last Thursday expects prices of around 7.5 to 8.0 kroner per kilo for the rest of 2026. Breakeven for a slaughter pig requires roughly 11.5 kroner per kilo.
LandbrugsAvisen reports that Seges Innovation sharply revised its price prognosis for piglets and slaughter pigs in mid-August 2026, citing African swine fever in Spain and the resulting inflow of pork to the European market.
Effektivt Landbrug reports that producers have criticized Danish Crown for holding its notation at 6.90 kroner per kilo while the German reference price has risen. In a company statement dated May 22, 2026, Danish Crown said Danish farmers are losing money in a historically difficult market and called current prices economically unsustainable.
The government wants to reduce exports of piglets and support the pigs slaughtered in Denmark, which is the production now under pressure. Jensen told DR that the new government’s animal welfare plans are not behind the current economic crisis, but warned that tighter requirements would hit producers like him.
