Life Cycle of Pork Products
Industrial partners: Environmental Research Management (ERM)
Sponsors: AHDB Pork
Duration: 2008 – 2009
Aims and objectives
ERM was commissioned to conduct a Life Cycle Assessment Scoping Study (LCA) to compare production systems and provide an understanding of impacts, their scale and where they arise. The modelling study quantified impacts on:
- Climate change
- Eutrophication
- Acidification
- Abiotic resource depletion associated with pork production to farm gate
Findings to date
Pig production contributes the most to the environmental profile of pork products; of this phase, feed production makes the largest contribution (78%)
- Improvements can be achieved by:
- More pigs per litter
- Improving feed conversion ratio
- Reducing sow feed consumption
- Improving mortality rates
- Reducing sow culls
- Anaerobic digestion of slurry leads to significant savings with regard to climate change, eutrophication and acidification
- The main areas in which improvements to the environmental impact of pork production can be achieved are:
- Using feed as efficiently as possible
- Achieving higher numbers of pigs per litter
- Managing the slurry/manure in ways that reduce its impacts