189 Swine Production and Greenhouse Gases

Abstract

Abstract Like much of agriculture, the swine industry is being asked to improve the sustainability of their production systems. In an integrated project, swine researchers, agronomists, and renewable energy scientists collected data to analyze the greenhouse gas and fossil energy footprints from Minnesota commercial swine production facilities as well as cropping and swine production data from the University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center. These environmental impacts were assessed using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology in a cradle to farm gate study that examined the impacts on a per unit of liveweight pork produced basis. In the average commercial system, the GHG emissions were 2.41 kg CO2 equiv. per kg hog LW, with 75% emitted during the grow-finish phase, 6% in farrowing, 9% in the nursery phase, 7% in gestation, and 2% in gilt development. GHG emissions for direct operation of swine facilities were 0.15 kg CO2 equiv. per kg and accounted for 6% of emissions in the average commercial scenario. The majority of GHG emissions were in the production of crops and the breakdown of manure during storage. This talk will explore the methods, data, and results from this study and other similar environmental impact studies for swine production. It will also discuss how producers can measure impacts at their farms and implement changes to improve their environmental impacts. An important consideration in the discussion is the ability of producers to directly reduce fossil energy and its carbon footprint, because fossil energy consumption impacts both the environmental and economic aspects of swine production.