Eco-friendly diet: nutrient digestibility, nitrogen and energy balances and growth performance of growing pigs.

The traditional approach to formulating pig diets is based only on minimizing cost while meeting nutritional requirements and thus does not consider the environmental impacts associated with producing feed ingredients. To reduce the overall environmental impact of pork production, that of feed ingredients can be considered to formulate environmentally friendly diets. However, their potential effects on pig performance could decrease environmental benefits at the farm gate. The objective of this study was to quantify the effects of such eco-friendly pig diets on nitrogen (N) and energy (E) balances, the components of heat production (HP) and the performance of growing pigs. Digestibility coefficients of dry matter (84.5% vs 88.2%, P < 0.01) and N (80.4% vs 86.3%, P < 0.01) were significantly lower for the eco-friendly diet than the Control-diet (a commercial diet used in France). N excretion in feces was significantly higher for the group of pigs fed the eco-friendly diet than for the group fed the Control-diet (9.8 vs 6.9 g/d, respectively, P = 0.01), while the N retention tended to be lower (27.8 vs 30.3 g/d, respectively; P = 0.06). The metabolizable E:digestible E ratio did not differ between diets, but total HP was significantly lower for the eco-friendly diet group than for the Control-diet group (1340 vs 1388 kJ/kg body weight (BW)0.60/d, respectively, P = 0.03). Using feed ingredients with lower environmental impacts, such as locally produced protein or co-products from wheat processing, is an effective way to decrease environmental impacts of pig production. However, the nutritional composition of these eco-friendly ingredients could be overestimated, in particular the true digestibility of amino acids. This indicates the need to better estimate and consider the true digestibility of eco-friendly diets to decrease environmental impacts of livestock production without decreasing animal performance.

Eco-Friendly Feed Formulation and On-Farm Feed Production as Ways to Reduce the Environmental Impacts of Pig Production Without Consequences on Animal Performance.

Animal feeding has a major contribution to the environmental impacts of pig production. One potential way to mitigate such effects is to incorporate an assessment of these impacts in the feed formulation process. The objective of this study was to test the ability of innovative formulation methodologies to reduce the impacts of pig production while also taking into account possible effects on growth performance. We compared three different formulation methodologies: least-cost formulation, in accordance with standard practices on commercial farms; multiobjective (MO) formulation, which considered feed cost and environmental impacts as calculated by life cycle assessment (LCA); and MO formulation, which prioritized locally produced feed ingredients to reduce the impact of transport. Ninety-six pigs were distributed between three experimental groups, with pigs individually weighted and fed using an automatic feeding system from 40 to 115 kg body weight. Based on the experimental results, six categories of impacts were evaluated: climate change (CC), demand in non-renewable energy (NRE), acidification (AC), eutrophication (EU), land occupation (LO), and phosphorus demand (PD), at both feed plant gate and farm gate, with 1 kg of feed and 1 kg of live pig as functional units, respectively. At feed level, MO formulations reduced CC, NRE, AC, and PD impacts but sometimes increased LO and EU impacts. These formulations reduced the proportion of cereals and oil meals into feeds (feed ingredients with high impacts), while the proportion of alternative protein sources, like peas, faba beans, or high-protein agricultural coproducts increased (feed ingredients with low impacts). Overall, animal performance was not affected by the dietary treatment; because of this, the general pattern of results obtained with either MO formulation at farm gate was similar to that obtained at feed level. Thus, MO diet formulation represents an efficient way to reduce the environmental impacts of pig production without compromising animal performance.

Multiobjective formulation is an effective method to reduce environmental impacts of livestock feeds.

Environmental and economic performances of livestock production are related largely to the production of complete feeds provided on commercial farms. Formulating feeds based on environmental and economic criteria appears a suitable approach to address the current challenges of animal production. We developed a multiobjective (MO) method of formulating feed which considers both the cost and environmental impacts (estimated via life cycle assessment) of the feed mix. In the first step, least-cost formulation provides a baseline for feed cost and potential impacts per kg of feed. In the second, the minimised MO function includes normalised values of feed cost and impacts climate change, P demand, non-renewable energy demand and land occupation. An additional factor weights the relative influence of economic and environmental objectives. The potential of the method was evaluated using two scenarios of feed formulation for pig, broiler and young bulls. Compared to baseline feeds, MO-formulated feeds had lower environmental impacts in both scenarios studied (-2 to -48 %), except for land occupation of broiler feeds, and a moderately higher cost (1-7 %). The ultimate potential for this method to mitigate environmental impacts is probably lower than this, as animal supply chains may compete for the same low-impact feed ingredients. The method developed complements other strategies, and optimising the entire animal production system should be explored in the future to substantially decrease the associated impacts.

ECOALIM: A Dataset of Environmental Impacts of Feed Ingredients Used in French Animal Production.

Feeds contribute highly to environmental impacts of livestock products. Therefore, formulating low-impact feeds requires data on environmental impacts of feed ingredients with consistent perimeters and methodology for life cycle assessment (LCA). We created the ECOALIM dataset of life cycle inventories (LCIs) and associated impacts of feed ingredients used in animal production in France. It provides several perimeters for LCIs (field gate, storage agency gate, plant gate and harbour gate) with homogeneously collected data from French R&D institutes covering the 2005-2012 period. The dataset of environmental impacts is available as a Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet on the ECOALIM website and provides climate change, acidification, eutrophication, non-renewable and total cumulative energy demand, phosphorus demand, and land occupation. LCIs in the ECOALIM dataset are available in the AGRIBALYSE® database in SimaPro® software. The typology performed on the dataset classified the 149 average feed ingredients into categories of low impact (co-products of plant origin and minerals), high impact (feed-use amino acids, fats and vitamins) and intermediate impact (cereals, oilseeds, oil meals and protein crops). Therefore, the ECOALIM dataset can be used by feed manufacturers and LCA practitioners to investigate formulation of low-impact feeds. It also provides data for environmental evaluation of feeds and animal production systems. Included in AGRIBALYSE® database and SimaPro®, the ECOALIM dataset will benefit from their procedures for maintenance and regular updating. Future use can also include environmental labelling of commercial products from livestock production.