According to preliminary results, commercial slaughter companies in Germany produced almost 3.5 million tons of meat in the first half of 2022. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that this is 7.9% less than the same period last year. In total, 25.8 million pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and horses, as well as 353.2 million chickens, turkeys and ducks were slaughtered in slaughterhouses in the first half of 2022. 10.1% less pork than in H1 2021

In the first six months of the year, German farms slaughtered 23.8 million pigs. This corresponds to a year-on-year decrease of approximately 2.3 million animals slaughtered or 8.9%. The volume of pork produced in the first half of 2022 amounted to 2.3 million tons, which is 10.1% lower than in the same period of the previous year (-253.8 thousand tons). The average carcass weight of pigs also decreased by just over one kilogram to 96.31 kilograms. One of the reasons for the decline in pork production is the reduction in the number of pigs in Germany.

Beef production is 9.1% lower than the same period last year

In total, farms in Germany slaughtered about 1.4 million cattle in the first half of 2022. Compared to the previous year, this represents a decrease of 8.1% (-127,200 animals). The volume of beef produced for the reporting period decreased by 9.1% to 476,100 tons (-47,500 tons) compared to 2021. With a weight of 329.53 kilograms, the average weight of cattle was about 3.6 kilograms lower than the weight of the same period last year.

Poultry meat production is largely constant

Much less than the production of pork and beef, the amount of poultry meat produced decreased in the 1st half of 2022. At the level of about 771.6 thousand tons, 0.2% less poultry meat was produced than in the same period of the previous year (-1,800 tons).

Various products from Acer, Asus, MSI, Motorola Mobility and Lenovo may be banned from sale in the US.

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has decided to launch an investigation into patent infringement by these companies. The lawsuit was filed by VideoLabs, which thematic resources call a patent troll.

VideoLabs claims that the PCs and other devices of the above companies infringe patents that belong to it. We are talking about four patents, three of which relate to video encoding methods, and another describes a way to play video on portable devices with automatic adjustment when the screen orientation changes.

VideoLabs was founded in 2018. It does not produce anything, but specializes only in the collection of patents from the field of video processing.

Patents must die, all of them.

Residents of the Netherlands, who have to sign a new energy contract, will pay almost 6,500 euros for gas and electricity annually.

This is more than 4,000 euros more than a year ago (160% more, or 2.6 times more), NU.nl said, based on data from the comparison site Gaslicht.com.

According to the comparison site, an annual contract for gas and electricity cost an average of 6,466 euros per year as of August 1st. This includes the VAT reduction that the Cabinet of Ministers has introduced to help bring down energy prices (that is, the net sum after deducting part of the VAT).

Last year it cost 2308 euros on the same day. The comparison is based on the average consumption of an average household.

Energy prices have been on the rise since May last year, but Russia's NWO in Ukraine has greatly accelerated this rise.

“Energy prices have been exceptionally high for seven months. The longer they stay high, the more people will have to deal with it,” said Gaslicht.com founder Ben Waldring.

People with fixed energy contracts notice an increase when their contract needs to be renewed. People with variable rates see this when energy companies raise their prices.

"Wholesale electricity prices are now 8-10 times higher than usual. Last year, 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity cost 20 euro cents, and now it is from 50 to 70 cents. For gas, it was 80 cents per cubic meter, and these rates are already rising from 2.50 to 3 euros per cubic meter,” Waldring said.

On Thursday, Statistics Netherlands reported that inflation in the Netherlands topped 10% for the first time since 1975 in July, largely due to high energy prices.