Fewer pigs, more space
A Danish Citizens’ Assembly is calling for a fundamental transformation of pig farming. The randomly selected citizens want fewer animals, more space, stricter inspections and an end to exports of live pigs. Now politicians must show how seriously they take their own promises of citizen participation.
An unusually stark verdict
It is an unusually stark verdict on one of the most important branches of Danish agriculture. “We cannot continue with the kind of pig farming we have in Denmark,” write the members of a national Citizens’ Assembly on animal welfare. They want significantly fewer pigs, substantially better living conditions and a shift away from mass production towards a system in which animal welfare and quality take precedence.
On 2 September 2026, the mini public presented its eight recommendations, comprising 33 individual measures, to Denmark’s Minister for Nature and Animal Welfare, Christian Rabjerg Madsen, and to the Danish Parliament’s Environment and Food Committee. The proposals go far beyond minor improvements. Among other things, the assembly calls for more space, an end to routine tail docking, stricter inspections, independent research and a substantial reduction in the environmental impact of pig farming.
From a random invitation to a Citizens’ Assembly
The starting point was Denmark’s 2024 animal welfare agreement, “Sammen om Dyrene” (“Together for the Animals”). At the time, a broad parliamentary majority decided to involve citizens more closely in decisions on animal welfare. In autumn 2025, 10,012 randomly selected adults received an invitation. Of these, 491 expressed an interest in taking part. Thirty-six people were then selected by lot to ensure that the group reflected the population as closely as possible in terms of age, gender and region. In the end, 31 members participated regularly.
Between January and April, the Citizens’ Assembly met five times and worked for a total of around 32 hours. Participants heard from experts in science and agriculture, representatives of animal welfare organisations and pig farmers. They then drafted their recommendations themselves. We Do Democracy and Democracy X organised and facilitated the process independently of the ministry.
Jacob Jensen of the liberal Venstre party, who was Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries when the assembly began, said he hoped the process would give “ordinary Danes” a voice. The more perspectives that were included, he argued, the better decisions on animal welfare could become.
A country of pigs
It is almost impossible to discuss any other farm animal in Denmark without also talking about a major sector of the economy. On 1 January 2026, Denmark had 12.3 million pigs – roughly two pigs for every one of the country’s nearly six million inhabitants. The number of animals passing through Danish farms over the course of a year is even higher: according to the industry association Landbrug & Fødevarer, 31.8 million pigs were produced in 2025.
The industry has changed in recent years. At the beginning of 2025, Denmark had around 11.6 million pigs, nine per cent fewer than ten years earlier. The number of heavier finishing pigs has fallen particularly sharply. But this does not simply reflect declining production. Part of the industry has shifted abroad: Denmark now exports enormous numbers of live piglets, mainly to Germany and Poland, where they are fattened and slaughtered. Since the second quarter of 2023, more piglets have been exported than finishing pigs slaughtered in Denmark.
In the second quarter of 2025 alone, 4.1 million live pigs were exported, while 3.3 million animals were slaughtered in Denmark. According to Statistics Denmark, 98 per cent of live pigs exported since 2017 have been piglets. This also helps explain why the citizens’ assembly did not confine itself to conditions inside Danish barns but questioned the export of live animals as such.
A great deal at stake
There is a great deal at stake economically. According to the industry association, Danish pig exports were worth 36.9 billion Danish kroner in 2025, equivalent to just under €5 billion. The association attributes 33,300 jobs, directly and indirectly, to pig production. The main foreign markets are Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom, China and Italy. Although these export figures come from the industry itself, the association says they are based on data from Statistics Denmark.
These figures reveal the true scale of the citizens’ assembly’s recommendations. When the randomly selected citizens call for fewer pigs, more space and potentially an end to a substantial share of live-animal exports, they are not talking about a niche within agriculture. They are challenging an economic model that has shaped Denmark for more than a century.
Three times as much space
One of the most far-reaching demands concerns space. In future, every pig should have at least 1.3 square metres of indoor space and 2.4 square metres outdoors. New barns should meet this requirement immediately, while existing farms would have until 2040 to comply. The assembly also calls for requirements concerning enrichment materials, feeding and opportunities for pigs to root and explore.
The conditions in which sows are kept should also change fundamentally. The mini public calls for more space around the time of birth, nesting material and an end to confinement. Tail docking should genuinely be brought to an end. Inspections should become more frequent and violations punished much more severely. In the assembly’s view, repeated serious violations could ultimately result in farmers losing the right to keep animals.
The assembly also explicitly questions whether Denmark should maintain its current role as a major exporter of pigs. Instead of keeping as many animals as possible, the country should in future raise fewer pigs and produce meat to higher animal-welfare standards. If conventional farming practices remain unchanged, the assembly even considers a 95 per cent reduction in this part of the industry appropriate.
Not a wish list
The participants were remarkably united. The 33 measures received an average approval rate of 97 per cent. No one made use of the opportunity to publish a dissenting minority opinion.
Gunnar Sigaard Simonsen, a former teacher and one of the participants, describes the experience in these terms: when ordinary citizens come together outside party politics and are “really given the space to listen to one another”, a particular kind of conversation becomes possible. The assembly, he said, had given its members both greater understanding and “a clear voice in the debate”.
The experts who accompanied the assembly also gave the process a positive assessment. Animal ethicist Peter Sandøe of the University of Copenhagen, philosopher and animal ethicist Mickey Gjerris, and animal-welfare researcher Lene Juul Pedersen of Aarhus University write that the assembly received a balanced range of information and therefore had “good conditions” for considering the difficult questions surrounding Danish pig farming.
A democratic experiment
For Johan Galster, CEO of We Do Democracy and one of those responsible for running the process, its significance therefore extends beyond animal welfare. For the Danish Parliament, he says, the assembly represents a “new beginning” that could demonstrate how citizens, drawing on their everyday experience, might in future become involved at an early stage in preparing legislation.
Bjørn Bedsted of Democracy X stresses that participants did not simply compile a list of demands. They heard from experts and interest groups representing different perspectives and considered the consequences of their proposals. The recommendations were therefore “not a non-binding wish list”, he said, but a contribution to the political negotiations ahead.
Those running the process also offer some self-criticism. For future national citizens’ assemblies, they recommend allowing more time for deliberation, providing a broader range of information, paying participants and devoting more resources to ensuring that the results are subsequently taken up by the political system. The Danish experiment was deliberately conducted with limited time and funding.
Now comes the difficult part
When the recommendations were presented, Social Democrat Christian Rabjerg Madsen, Minister for Nature and Animal Welfare, promised to take the proposals seriously. When citizens invest time and effort in examining pig farming thoroughly, he said, politicians have a duty to listen. The recommendations are to feed into the work of a planned four-party group on the future of pig farming.
Yet the presentation itself already revealed how wide the gap between a citizens’ recommendation and a political decision can become. Lars Aagaard of the Moderates, chair of the relevant parliamentary committee, praised the Citizens’ Assembly but expressed scepticism about a complete ban on exports of live pigs. Some proposals were “pretty radical and categorical”, he said. What he particularly missed was an assessment of their economic consequences.
That is precisely why the Citizens’ Assembly is now becoming a test of the process itself. The ministry has pledged to discuss the recommendations with the parties behind the animal welfare agreement. The Danish Animal Ethics Council and the responsible authority are also to assess them. Within six months, the members of the mini public are supposed to be told what has happened politically to their proposals; a further review is planned after two years. There is, however, no obligation to implement them.
The Citizens’ Assembly has therefore completed its task. It has not merely demanded that pigs should live better lives. It has also stated what price society should, in its view, be prepared to accept: higher meat prices, lower production and possibly the loss of market share. The more difficult question now lies with Denmark’s politicians: whether they are prepared to make decisions after explicitly asking citizens for their advice.