title: Environmental impact of heavy pig production in a sample of Italian farms. A cradle to farm-gate analysis.
abstract: Four breeding piggeries and eight growing-fattening piggeries were analyzed to estimate potential environmental impacts of heavy pig production (>160kg of live height at slaughtering). Life Cycle Assessment methodology was adopted in the study, considering a system from breeding phase to growing fattening phase. Environmental impacts of breeding phase and growing-fattening phase were accounted separately and then combined to obtain the impacts of heavy pig production. The functional unit was 1kg of live weight gain. Impact categories investigated were global warming (GW), acidification (AC), eutrophication (EU), abiotic depletion (AD), and photochemical ozone formation (PO). The total environmental impact of 1kg of live weight gain was 3.3kg CO2eq, 4.9E-2kg SO2eq, 3.1E-2kg PO4(3-)eq, 3.7E-3kg Sbeq, 1.7E-3kg C2H4eq for GW, AC, EU, AD, and PO respectively. Feed production was the main hotspot in all impact categories. Greenhouse gases responsible for GW were mainly CH4, N2O, and CO2. Ammonia was the most important source of AC, sharing about 90%. Nitrate and NH3 were the main emissions responsible for EU, whereas P and NOx showed minor contributions. Crude oil and natural gas consumption was the main source of AD. A large spectrum of pollutants had a significant impact on PO: they comprised CH4 from manure fermentation, CO2 caused by fossil fuel combustion in agricultural operations and industrial processes, ethane and propene emitted during oil extraction and refining, and hexane used in soybean oil extraction. The farm characteristics that best explained the results were fundamentally connected with performance indicators Farms showed a wide variability of results, meaning that there was wide margin for improving the environmental performance of either breeding or growing-fattening farms. The effectiveness of some mitigation measures was evaluated and the results that could be obtained by their introduction have been presented.
authors.affiliation: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Fodder and Dairy Production Research Centre, Via A. Lombardo 11, 26900 Lodi, Italy. Electronic address: giacomo.pirlo@crea.gov.it.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pirlo
authors.affiliation: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Fodder and Dairy Production Research Centre, Via A. Lombardo 11, 26900 Lodi, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carè
authors.affiliation: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Unit for Swine Husbandry, Via Beccastecca 345, San Cesario sul Panaro, 41018, Italy.
authors.forename: G Della
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Casa
authors.affiliation: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Unit for Swine Husbandry, Via Beccastecca 345, San Cesario sul Panaro, 41018, Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marchetti
authors.affiliation: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Unit for Swine Husbandry, Via Beccastecca 345, San Cesario sul Panaro, 41018, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ponzoni
authors.affiliation: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Unit for Swine Husbandry, Via Beccastecca 345, San Cesario sul Panaro, 41018, Italy.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Faeti
authors.affiliation: ENEA, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, 40129 Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Fantin
authors.affiliation: ENEA, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, 40129 Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Masoni
authors.affiliation: ENEA, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, 40129 Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Buttol
authors.affiliation: Associazione Regionale Allevatori dell'Emilia Romagna, Via Roma 89/2-Loc. Viadagola, 40057 Granarolo dell'Emilia, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zerbinatti
authors.affiliation: LCA-lab SRL, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Falconi
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods*; D000818:Animals; D001947:Breeding; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D057232:Global Warming; D007558:Italy; D013552:Swine
keywords: Abiotic resource depletion; Acidification; Eutrophication; Global warming potential; Photochemical ozone formation