Research shows that the global number of mink bred and killed for fur has halved over the past two years. New figures show a steep drop from 33 million produced globally in 2020 to 17 million mink pelts in 2022. 

Recent industry data highlights a consistent downward trend globally, including in Europe, North America and China. Mink fur production in the EU dropped from 18 million pelts in 2020, to 7.5 million in 2022, whereas 700.000 fox pelts were produced last year, down from 1.2 million in 2020. In China, the world’s largest producer of fur, mink pelt production dropped from 9.3 in 2020 to 5.8 mink pelts in 2022. There was also a sharp decline of Chinese fox fur production, down from 12 million pelts in 2020 to 8 million in 2022. 

Although European fur farmers claim that fur farming prohibitions in Europe will increase fur production in China, these statistics show that the opposite is true. Just as in Europe, the Chinese industry has been steadily declining for years following an increasing lack of demand and growing stockpiles.

The significant economic slowdown of the fur trade emphasises the sharp drop in fur’s popularity as more and more consumers, designers and legislators turn away from this immoral product. In the past five years alone, nine European countries introduced bans on fur farming and more than 10 cities in the US banned the sales of fur products, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have dealt another blow to the industry, but the downward trend had already started long ago.

The new numbers suggest an extremely poor financial outlook for the global fur trade. The European Commission should now advance plans to ban the production of fur farming across the EU and explore banning the placing on the market of farmed fur products, as called for by the record-breaking Fur Free Europe European Citizens’ Initiative. This latest research shows that such a move would have a minimal socio-economic impact and open up economic opportunities for sustainable activities that don’t rely on the animal cruelty inherent in the fur industry.