Sustainability comparison of commercial Brazilian organic and conventional broiler production systems under a 5SENSU model perspective

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the sustainability of a commercial organic broiler production system based on the concept of strong sustainability. Thus, the FIVE SEctors of SUstainability model (5SENSU) under a perspective of Goal Programming philosophy were used and the results were compared to a commercial convencional broiler production system. For the data collection, two case studis were carried out in a representative commercial organic broiler production system (UPrO) and commercial conventional broiler production system (UPc) in the state of São Paulo from October/2020 to June/2021. The environmental and social dimensions were considered as providers of resources for the system and receivers of products and negative externalities. Environmental criteria were performed using the Emergy Synthesis, while economic criteria were performed using calculation models based on Economic theory. Furthermore, social criteria were performed using data collected on a farm. In the end, the broiler production system sustainability was compared using a general sustainability index by means of the Goal Programming philosophy. The results show a trade-off between animal welfare and economic and environmental costs. The lower stocking density in UPrO raised the animal welfare by providing more area/animal, but increased the resource consumption, GHG emission and the production cost. However, when social results were considered, UPrO showed more pathways to achieve a more sustainable commercial broiler production, as shown by the general sustainability index (43.2 and 49.4 for UPrO and UPc, respectively).