The article presents the situation of the Polish farms specialising in pig farming in comparison with analogous ones in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain. The assessment covered the production and economic activity of farms targeted at live pig production was assessed and determination of their effectiveness and competitiveness as well as the possibilities of their development. The analysis showed that the main factor determining the production efficiency and competitiveness of pig farms is the production scale, and among large and very large farms only Polish and Spanish farms were fully competitive. The paper also indicates the main reasons for the weakness of the Polish pig production sector, which were identified as low degree of concentration and lack of links between livestock producers and processing plants and the existence of barriers hampering investments in livestock buildings adapted to a larger scale of production. In addition, the paper formulates the methods and directions of possible corrective actions in the field.