• On 2 December, President Nawrocki signed the law banning fur farming in the country.
• In Europe, fur farms will remain in five states: Finland, Denmark, Spain, Hungary and Greece.
• The ban will help curb the transmission of zoonotic diseases and reduce CO2 emissions.

No more fur in Poland. That is the decision of President Karol Nawrocki, who on 2 December officially signed a law banning fur farming in the country. In a speech published on X, the president justified his decision by stating that more than two-thirds of Poles, including residents of rural areas, are in favour of the ban.

In mid-October the Polish Parliament had already approved the ban, but the final signature only came on 2 December. The two hundred farms currently operating in the country will have until January 2034 to close. Farmers who choose to do so by 2029 will be eligible for compensation. Although Poland has been producing fur for a relatively recent period (roughly since the mid-twentieth century), it has become Europe's leading producer and the world's second-largest after China, with more than 3 million animals killed every year, including mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and chinchillas.

Poland is the 18th European country to close fur farms

"A historic moment for animal protection in Poland," celebrated the association Humane World for Animals Europe, noting that Poland joins the seventeen other European states that have already banned fur farming in the past. Five nations – Finland, Denmark, Spain, Hungary and Greece – continue to maintain the practice.

The announcement goes hand in hand with the decline in global fur exports which – according to the animal protection organisation Anima International – fell from 14.7 billion dollars in 2013 to around 3.4 billion dollars in 2023. This is due to shrinking consumer demand, but above all to growing awareness of animal welfare. Moreover, in Poland alone, over a nine-year period (from 2015 to 2024), exports of mink fur – the product that made the country famous worldwide – collapsed by more than 80 per cent.

A victory for the environment and public health too

The end of fur farming has two positive consequences: a reduction in the transmission of zoonotic diseases and an effective cut in CO2 emissions. For public health reasons, millions of mink and millions of other animals have been culled across 13 countries in Europe and North America in recent years. As for the environmental impact, consider that 1 kg of mink fur generates an amount of emissions 31 times greater than that of cotton, 26 times greater than acrylic and 25 times greater than polyester. The same applies to raccoon dog and fox fur: their climate impact is 23 times greater than that of cotton and 18 times greater than that of polyester.