The number of chickens in Switzerland is growing steadily. (archive image)
This is the result of the figures on livestock and agricultural land published by the Federal Statistical Office (BFS) on Thursday. The number of chickens in particular has been increasing for decades – from 6.2 million chickens in 1996 to 13.1 million in 2022. The number of sheep has also increased by 2 percent within a year. The number of pigs, on the other hand, has remained relatively constant despite certain fluctuations over the years. The cattle population has fallen from 1.7 million since 1996 to 1.5 million in 2022.
As can also be seen from the BFS data, Swiss farmers grew almost 50 percent more oats in 2022 than in the previous year. In contrast, the area used for grain maize fell by eight percent. In the meantime, there were hardly any changes in the total agricultural area. Switzerland still has a little more than a million hectares of it.