US States That Slaughter The Most Animals For Meat (2024)

97% of animals killed in the U.S. meet their ends in American slaughterhouses, pounds, open spaces, and labs for the production of food for humans. It reached a record new high in the year 2000 and, according to a survey, it will keep on rising in the near future as well. People's appetite for this meat has created a large domestic meat industry in the USA, and in the year 2013 it produced around 132 billion pounds of meat for human consumption, which was further facilitated by a large demand abroad for American meat exports. In the year 2014, 8.5 billion chickens were slaughtered for consumption purposes, as compared to the figure of 112 million pigs and 32.5 million cattle in the year 2013.

U.S. States Killing The Most Animals for Meat Consumption

Nebraska reported being the top US State that is killing animals for food, and followed by the states of Texas and North Carolina. An estimated 8.7% of the slaughtered meat in the U.S. came from Nebraska alone in the year 2013, totaling around 11.5 billion pounds. In Texas, the figure is close to 11.32 billion, in North Carolina 9.87 billion, and in Kansas 8.3 billion pounds of fresh carcasses killed for meat. Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Minnesota and Missouri also feature in top ten American States for meat slaughter.

Nebraska

In Nebraska, the most slaughtered animals reported are the cattle whose beef is used for human consumption, and it accounts for 8.7% of the National Production in the country. The cattle slaughter accounts for more than 80% of total slaughter in the weight, and they have the largest number of their workforce working towards the cattle slaughter than any other American state. Nebraska also houses the US Meat Animal Research Center, which intends to allow this industry to rise to ever higher levels of profit-making.

Texas

Texas also houses a large commercial meat industry, and in the year 2013 8.6% of the total cattle killed in the U.S. were slaughtered in the "Lonestar" state. The cattle and the hogs account for 66% and 32% of the meat slaughter. It is also a leading state in hunting, with a reported 330,535 wild buck deer killed in Texas in the year 2013.

North Carolina

North Carolina indulged in slaughtering of 740 million of chickens and nearly 60% of the national weight for meat comes from this state and is a major place for turkey slaughter.

Iowa

Iowa is mainly focused on hog slaughter, and nearly 6.7% of total U.S. meat production comes from here, and 90% of this is sourced from hogs. There are around 1.8% of the workers here employed in the slaughtering and meat processing industry.

Kansas

In Kansas, nearly 6.3 million cows were slaughtered, and it stands at the ninth position as a meat producing state. The state employs more than 31,000 employees in this industry.

Relationship Between Meat Production and Global Warming

The impact of the animal meat industry has grown in the recent times due to increased number of slaughters in the American States and the production of higher amounts of food here than ever before. The reports say that 18% of the greenhouse emissions come from the meat industry, which is more than the exhaust from all kinds of transportation. Even the raising and killing of the livestock is reportedly responsible for 65% of human-related emissions of Nitrous Oxide, which is more potent as a climate change catalyst than Carbon Dioxide, and one that stays in the atmosphere for 150 years.

1. Home
2. Society
3. US States That Slaughter The Most Animals For Meat