Feeding Strategies to Mitigate Cost and Environmental Footprint of Pig Production in the US

The livestock sector is one of main drivers of the environmental footprint. Animal feed is a key to sustainable meat production. Researchers are looking for environmentally sustainable feeding strategies that will lower diet cost, agricultural use of land, water depletion, and climate change impact. We used linear models to formulate 4 single-objective diets including least-cost, least-land use, least-water depletion, and least-climate change impact diets. Preliminary results showed that the use of wheat and wheat middlings hold potential to reduce pig diet cost and the environmental footprint.

Purpose

Demand for sustainable food, which conserves the environment and meets the needs of human development and increasing population, is growing (SCAR 2014). Livestock production is one of the major causes of the world’s environmental impacts including agricultural land use, water depletion, and climate change impact (PEW Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production 2010). Feeding is the most important factor in livestock production cost and animal performance which includes growth, nutrition, health, sustainability, and productivity. Farmers are interested in producing animals with a better performance and need feeding strategies that will lower diet costs and conserve resource use (land and water). The objective of this study is to develop cost-effective diet formulations and mitigate the environmental footprint of pig production in the US.

What did we do?

Figure 1. Preliminary grow phase single-objective pig diets including typical US, least-cost, least-climate change impact, least-water depletion, and least-land use. Legend should be read left to right and top to bottom.

Windows-based User Friendly Feed Formulation (WUFFDA) linear models are used to formulate single-objective pig diets including least-cost, least-water use, least-land use, and least-climate change impact diets (Figure 1) (Pesti et al. 2004). Models include typical feed ingredients and additional US pig industry top 50 used protein and energy feed ingredients (Table 1 and 2). Nutrient characteristics, inclusion limits, environmental footprint, and cost data for feed ingredients were obtained from the US Animal Feed Database  and incorporated into WUFFDA models (Burek et al. 2014). Theoretical diets are compared against typical US pig multi-phase diets which were obtained from a nutritionist (Figure 1).

Table 1. Typical feed ingredients in US pig diets.
Blood Plasma	L-Valine
Copper Sulfate	Milk, Lactose
Corn DDG	Milk, Whey Powder
Corn, Yellow Dent	Neo-Terramycin
Dicalcium Phosphate	Paylean
DL-Methionine	Potassium Sulfate
Ethoxiquin	Poultry By-Product
Fat (Poultry)	Ronozyme
Fish Meal	Sodium Chloride
Limestone, Ground	Soybean meal, 48%
L-Isoleucine	Trace Mineral Premix
L-Lysine-HCI	Vitamin premix
L-Threonine	Zinc Oxide
L-Tryptophan

 

Table 2. Top 50 protein and energy feed ingredients in US pig diets.
Alfalfa Meal	Oat Grains
Barley	Oyster Shell
Beet Pulp	Pea Protein Concentrate
Blood Meal Spray-Dried	Peas, Field Peas
Canola Meal, Expelled	Rice
Canola Oil	Rice Bran
Canola, Full Fat	Rice, Broken
Citrus Pulp	Rye
Corn Bran	Safflower Meal
Corn Gluten Feed	Sorghum
Corn Gluten Meal	Soy Protein Concentrate
Cotton Seed Meal	Soy Protein Isolate
Fat (A/V Blend)	Soybean Hulls
Fat (Beef Tallow)	Soybean Meal, 44%
Fat (Restaurant Grease)	Soybean Oil
Feather Meal	Soybean Seeds, Heat Processed
Flaxseed	Soybeans, High Protein, Full Fat
Flaxseed Meal	Sunflower Meal
Meat and Bone Meal	Sunflower, Full Fat
Milk, Casein	Wheat Bran
Milk, Whey Permeate	Wheat Middlings
Milk, Whey Protein Concentrate	Wheat Shorts
Molasses, Sugar Beets	Wheat, Hard Red
Molasses, Sugarcane	Wheat, Hard Red Winter

What have we learned?

The US producers use corn and soybean meal as a base for pig diets (Figure 1). The single-objective modeling shows that more sustainable and cost-effective diets can be formulated by diversifying protein and energy sources. For example, preliminary theoretical single-objective diets for one pig growing phase show that the use of wheat and wheat middlings may reduce multiple objectives (Figure 1). The least-cost diet includes wheat, sorghum, wheat middlings, and corn distillers grains (Figure 1). Wheat, wheat middlings, soybeans, soybean hulls, corn distillers grains are the main ingredients in the least-climate change impact diet (Figure 1). The least-water depletion diet includes wheat middlings, corn distillers grains, and canola meal (Figure 1). The least-land use includes corn distillers grains, wheat, rice bran, and corn gluten feed (Figure1). Theoretical diets serve as guidelines to develop realistic sustainable cost-effective pig diets that pig producers will be able to incorporate into their production system. 

Future Plans

The results presented in this manuscript are preliminary. Formulated diets will be analyzed using the Pig Environmental Calculator (PPEC) and Simapro 8.1 life cycle assessment (LCA) pig production model (PRé Consultants 2014; National Pork Board 2015). The PPEC calculates the actual amount of feeds and total costs (National Pork Board 2015). The Simapro 8.3 cradle-to-farm gate pig production life-cycle assessment model calculates environmental impacts of pig production (PRé Consultants 2014).

Animal feed availability, pig production practices, and environmental footprints vary for pig production regions in the US. Feed costs are dynamic including costs and geography. The intention is to develop pig diets for different pig production regions in the US. Thus, further research will focus on multi-objective analyses to evaluate potential to reduce simultaneously cost and environmental footprints under different constraints. We will verify results with nutritionists, economists, and other experts. The pig producers will have access to formulated diets through PPEC.

Authors

Jasmina Burek, Research Associate, University of Arkansas jburek@uark.edu

Greg Thoma, Jennie Popp, Charles Maxwell, Rick Ulrich

Additional information

Pig Production Environmental Calculator
Life-Cycle Assessment Modeling for the Pork Industry

References

Burek J, Thoma G, Popp J, et al. (2014) Developing Environmental Footprint, Cost, and Nutrient Database of US Animal Feed Ingredients.

National Pork Board (2015) Carbon Footprint of Pork Production Calculator – Pork Checkoff.

PEW Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (2010) Environmental Impact of Industrial Farm Animal Production.

PRé Consultants (2014) SimaPro 8.3.

SCAR (2014) Sustainable food. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/food.htm.

Acknowledgements

This research is part of the program “Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Agriculture,” and is supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2011-68002-30208 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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