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Chapter 4: Industrial livestock systems & the environment

Environmental challenges
Conclusions

Industrial livestock systems & the environment

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION¹ of pork, poultry and (feedlot) beef and mutton is the fastest growing form of animal production. In 1996, it provided more than half the global pork and poultry meat (broiler) production and 10 percent of the beef and mutton production. This represented 43 percent of total global meat production, up from 37 percent in 1991-93. Moreover, it provided more than two-thirds of the global egg supply. Geographically, the industrialized countries dominate intensive industrial pig and poultry production accounting for 52 percent of the global industrial pork production and 58 percent of the poultry production. Asia contributes 31 percent of the world's pork production (Sere and Steinfeld, 1996 and Figure 4.1).

¹ Defined as production systems in which less than 10 percent of the feed is produced within the production unit.

Industrial ruminant production is concentrated in Eastern Europe, the ex-Soviet Union and in the OECD countries (Figure 4.1). Typical examples are large-scale feedlots in the USA and in the former centrally planned economies. Industrial sheep feedlots are found in the Near East, North Africa and the USA.

The industrial production system is open both in physical and economic terms. It depends on outside supply of feed, energy and other inputs. Technology, capital and infrastructure requirements are based on large economies of scale and, because of this, production efficiency is high in terms of output per unit of feed or per man-hour, although less so when measured in terms of energy units. Yet, as the world's main provider of eggs, poultry meat and pork at competitive prices, it meets most of the escalating demands for low cost animal products in rapidly growing urban centres of the developing world.

Figure 4.1: Industrial system livestock production by world region ('1000 tons).

Environmental challenges

State
Driving forces
Response: Technology and policy options

Because of its open nature and many interfaces with the natural resource base, the industrial "big-industry" system signifies for many the epitome of what is wrong with animal production. The industrial scale implies large herd/flock sizes, large volumes of wastes, high animal health risks, and less attention to animal welfare. It has multiple opportunities to dump its waste products without accounting for the environmental costs. There are, however, solutions which could substantially reduce the negative environmental effects, although at a cost. The biggest challenge that the sector faces over the next decade is to identify technologies and establish policies that will internalize the environmental costs.

State

The industrial system acts directly on land, water, air and biodiversity through the emission of animal waste, use of fossil fuels and substitution of animal genetic resources. In addition, it affects the global land base indirectly, through its effect on the arable land needed to satisfy its feed concentrate requirements. Ammonia emissions from manure storage and application lead to localized acid rain and ailing forests, for example in European countries. Also, the industrial system requires the use of uniform animals of similar genetic composition. This contributes to within-breed erosion of domestic animal diversity. The effects of each of the direct agents are described below and the indirect environmental effects of feed concentrate production and the pressure on domestic animal diversity, are described in Chapter 5.

Land, water and air. These are the environmental components mostly affected by the concentration of animals and waste production. Manure is the main agent having effect, mostly during storage and after application on the land. Pigs and poultry excrete some 65 and 70 percent, respectively, of their nitrogen and phosphate intake. Nitrogen, under aerobic conditions, can evaporate in the form of ammonia with toxic, eutrophic and acidifying effects on ecosystems (Wilson and Skeffington, 1994). A greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide (N₂O), is formed as part of the denitrification process with particularly harmful effects on the environment. Nitrates are leached into the groundwater posing human health hazards and run-off and leaching of nitrogen directly lead to eutrophication and big-diversity loss of surface waters and connected ecosystems. Phosphorus, on the other hand, is rather stable in the soil, but, when P saturation is reached after long term high level application of manure, leaching occurs and this also causes eutrophication (Fig. 4.2).

Figure 4.2: Possible losses from manure between excretion and crop uptake.

Source: Bos and de Wit, 1996.

Ammonia and other nitrogenous gases result from the digestion of protein, part of which is lost in manure and urine. Growing pigs, for example, excrete 70 percent of the protein in feed while beef cattle excrete 80 to 90 percent and broiler chickens 55 percent (Jongbloed and Lenis, 1992). Ammonia, in high concentrations in the air, can have a direct effect on plant growth, by damaging leaf absorption capacities but its indirect effect on soil chemistry is even more important. Ammonia acidifies the soil, interferes with the absorption of other essential plant elements, particularly in nitrogen-poor ecosystems such as forests. Livestock production is a major source of ammonia emissions in the industrial world. For example, of the 208,000 tons of ammonia emitted in the Netherlands in 1993, 181,000 tons was estimated to come from manure (Heij, 1995). This was about 55 percent of the total acid deposits in the Netherlands, industry and traffic being other important contributors. In many developing countries, industrial pollution, especially from high sulphuric acid coal burning is the more important source of acid rains. Ammonia also constitutes a health threat for farm workers.

The various forms of nitrogen losses lead to much reduced levels available for crop nutrition. Plant uptake and use depend on a series of other factors such as species, climatic and soil conditions. According to Bos and de Wit (1996), 20,50 and 44 percent of the nitrogen excreted by pigs, broilers and laying hens respectively are lost to the atmosphere as NH₃, as shown in Table 4.1. Because of its different chemical properties, phosphorus losses are insignificant because phosphorus mainly remains in the soil.

Table 4.1: Annual global nitrogen production in manure and losses of industrial monogastric systems (in million tons).

Source: Estimated from data from Bos and de Wit, 1996.

The amount of N. P. K and other nutrients available to the crop within the soil determine the fertilizer value of manure. Further significant losses may occur depending on the type of stable and manure management system (Safely et al., 1992) and thus define the direct environmental impact (Table 4.2).

Table 4.2: The relative importance of different manure management systems (percentage for each animal type)

Source: Compiled by Bos and de Wit, 1996.

Substantial nitrogen and phosphorus losses also occur when manure is applied on the land. Box 3.8 gives an overview of key factors affecting the environmental effects of manure spreading. The spreading of manure directly on the land can lead to nitrogen leaching into the water as nitrates and contamination of surface waters. This in turn leads to high algae growth, eutrophication and hence damages aquatic eco-systems. Not all soils are equally susceptible to nutrient loading and (ground) water contamination. Sandy soils with low cation exchange capacity, and therefore poor retention characteristics and high run-off, are particularly at risk.

Because of feed's high energy content and, for example, the direct use of fossil energy to heat stables, significant amounts of CO₂ are emitted. Anaerobic decomposition of manure also releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere when it is stored in liquid form (Chapter 5).

Heavy metals. Copper and zinc, which are essential minerals for livestock diet, are deliberately added to concentrate feed whereas other heavy metals, in particular cadmium, are introduced involuntarily via feed phosphates. Only 5 to 15 percent of metal additives are absorbed by animals, the rest is excreted. Soils, on which pig and poultry manure are continuously applied at high rates, accumulate heavy metals, jeopardizing the good functioning of soil, contaminating crops and posing human health risks (Conway and Pretty, 1991).

Fossil fuels. The industrial system is a poor converter of fossil energy. Fossil energy is a major input of intensive livestock production systems, mainly indirectly for the production of feed. For example, Table 4.3 shows that feed accounts for 72 to 74 percent of the total energy input, except for veal production where it is almost 90 percent. Similar observations can be made for industrial pig and poultry production (Table 4.4).

Table 4.3: Energy input of some types of industrial meat production systems (in Mega Joule (MJ) per kg of liveweight).

1) includes fossil energy requirements for production, transport and processing of feed
2) fossil energy for the production of the animals

Source: Brand and Melman, 1993.

Energy output for livestock products comprises food and non-food items. Southwell and Rothwell (1917) calculated output/input ratios of 0.38, 0.11 and 0.32 for pork, poultry meat and eggs respectively, while for milk it was 0.5. These calculations take into consideration fossil energy input only.

A large portion of non-food energy output is in the form of manure and the potential for recovery of this energy has greatly increased in recent years. Techniques for methane recovery are described in Chapter 5. The heavy concentration of animals in certain regions, particularly in the pig and poultry systems, has given rise to the development of large scale processing of manure for use elsewhere. Manure processing and transport further increases fossil fuel consumption, particularly if drying is involved. This extra energy expenditure may offset the energy savings made by concentrating livestock production.

Biodiversity. The industrial system has a threefold effect on species wealth through:

• its demand for concentrate feed, which changes land use and intensifies cropping. The production of feed grains, in particular, adds additional stress on biodiversity through habitat loss and damages in ecosystem functioning;

• waste production and its effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. These effects are often geographically confined to areas of high livestock densities. Eutrophication and destruction of habitats is a common phenomena in parts of north-eastern Europe and the USA as well as in the densely populated areas of the developing world, in particular Asia and to a lesser extent, Latin America. Ammonia emissions lead to acidification of particularly fragile habitats and so causes losses in biodiversity; and

• the requirement for extremely uniform animals of similar genetic composition. This contributes to within-breed erosion of domestic animal diversity, and is discussed in detail in Chapter 5.

Environmental benefits of industrial production systems. First, the rapid development of "modern" industrial pig and poultry systems helps to reduce total feed requirements of the global livestock sector to meet a given demand. It may therefore alleviate pressures for deforestation and degradation of rangelands, such as is happening in parts of Latin America and Asia, thus saving land and preserving biodiversity. Second, the feed-saving technologies developed for this system can be effective at any scale and therefore can be successfully transferred to mixed farming systems. The same holds true for waste prevention and treatment technologies which have been developed following regulations applied mainly to the industrial system. Therefore, the resource-saving and waste management technologies generated by the industrial systems bring benefits to the sector as a whole.

Table 4.4: Energy input for pigs and poultry systems (in MJ per kg of liveweight).

Sources: Southwell and Rothwell, 1977, Leijen et al., and Brand and Melman, 1993.

Driving forces

Population growth, rising income and urbanization are the fundamental driving forces determining growth of industrial livestock production. Globally, industrial animal production is the fastest growing sector, with over 4 and 5 percent growth per year in pork and broiler production, respectively. Annual growth for eggs is 3.8 percent and for mutton and beef 2.5 percent. Driven by rising incomes and rapid urbanization (which in itself causes an increase in meat consumption), Asia experienced over the last decade a staggering growth of 9 percent per year in industrial pig and poultry production, and this trend can be expected to accelerate. Sub-Saharan Africa shows good growth in all monogastric products, while Latin America continues to exhibit significant growth in poultry products. In Western Europe and the USA, growth is levelling off, while in the former Soviet Union, after the transition, all intensive meat and egg production is shrinking.

Industrial animal production has become concentrated in certain areas because of a number of factors which usually interact:

• Transport costs and market opportunities are the main determinants. First, the industrial system, especially for pigs and poultry, is characterised by a significant, and often exclusive, use of feeds of high energy content (mainly cereals, oilseeds and their byproducts). This high energy density allows movement of feeds over longer distances at substantially lower costs than perishable animal products, even though the quantities are larger. For example, sea transport costs of grains is one-tenth per unit weight that of frozen meat Cunningham (1992). Thus, with an average feed conversion of 3:1 for pigs and 2:1 for poultry it is less costly to transport feed than meat. In addition, over short to medium distances, live animal transport costs are similar to those of grains. These relative costs encourage production, slaughter and meat processing facilities to be located near urban centres. The large number of industrial units being established around Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai and Calcutta demonstrate this incentive for close proximity to the consumer. Second, ruminants require fibrous feeds such as silage, hay or fresh chopped forages, in addition to concentrate feed, to maintain the rumen functions. This requirement increases the transport costs for feed significantly and explains why industrial ruminant production is generally more connected to the landbase (and less to the consumer market) than pigs or poultry. In addition, feed conversion of concentrate feed per kg of beef or mutton is substantially poorer than with pigs and poultry. Intensive beef production is therefore only competitive where consumers can afford to pay a substantial premium for quality beef over chicken or pork. Third, in net grain importing developed countries, with abundant road and cooling infrastructure, large-scale industrial operations are located close to ports, such as pig operations in the Netherlands and northern Germany.

• Agrarian structure has favoured high livestock densities and the evolution of industrial-type systems where shrinking farm size forced farmers to engage in value-adding activities without significant land requirements, such as in some southern parts of Germany and the Netherlands, or to abandon agriculture altogether. This move has been favoured by price subsidies with the main objective of supporting rural populations; and

• Different policy settings within a country or free-market zone through, for example, tax advantages, low energy costs or low environmental standards, may lead to concentration of the industrial system. An example is where intensive poultry, and more recently also pig production, moved from the corn belt of the USA to the southern States, and, in the KU, to Italy and Spain.

Policies. In the past, industrial and intensive mixed farming systems have benefited from policy distortions and the absence of regulations or their enforcement and, in many cases, this vacuum has given this system a competitive edge over land-based systems. Furthermore, some policies have misdirected resource use and encouraged the development of technologies which are inefficient outside the distorted context. For example:

• In the KU, high domestic prices for beef, pork and milk, together with cheap imports of cereal-substitutes, such as cassava (Box 4.2), have benefited industrial production. In addition, parts of the industrial ruminant system, for example, veal production, have greatly benefited from the subsidy policy on milk replacers. This policy originated from the surplus production of milk caused by milk quotas in excess of market requirements although these have also been reduced;

• In WANA, small ruminant feedlots were (and still are) heavily dependent on subsidized feed, and this has encouraged inefficient feed use;

• In the former centrally planned economies, the feedlot system was based on heavily subsidized feed grain and on subsidized fuel and transport; and

•·Many developing countries not only have direct subsidies on feed but also on energy. As energy is a major direct and indirect cost item in industrial production systems, economy wide policies often tend to favour industrial production over grazing systems and mixed farming.

Finally, in practically no country in the world, is the industrial system charged with the full environmental costs of production. It appears that societies prefer the cheap supply of animal products over the functions of concerned ecosystems. Self-sufficiency in animal products and supply of high-value food commodities to urban populations seem to be overriding policy objectives, particularly in developing countries.

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