The paper presents the situation of the Polish specialist pig holdings at the backdrop of similar holdings in Hungary, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. In order to study their development abilities, the following indices underwent a comprehensive assessment: productivity, profitability, management income, net investment rates and share of subsidies in the income of an agricultural holding. The highest productivity indices were achieved by the Dutch holdings, and profitability – the Hungarian and Polish holdings. Very large Polish agricultural holdings also produced the highest aggregated values of the cumulative relative goodness index. Moreover, the paper points to the fundamental reasons behind the weakness of the Polish pig production sector, which cover low level of concentration and no linkages between the live pig producers and processing plants. It also determines how to take up and where to channel remedial actions.