Production of pork, the most consumed meat globally, is estimated to emit 668 m tonnes CO2-eq of greenhouse gases each year. Amongst various production systems that comprise the pig industry, grainbased intensive production is widely regarded as the largest polluter of the environment, and thus it is imperative to develop alternative systems that can provide the right balance between sustainability and food security. Using an original dataset from the Republic of Ireland, this paper examines the life-cycle environmental impacts of representative pig farms operating under varying production efficiencies. For the baseline farm with an average production efficiency, global warming potential (GWP), acidifi- cation potential (AP) and eutrophication potential (EP) per kg carcass weight departing the slaughterhouse were estimated to be 3.5 kg CO2-eq, 43.8 g SO2-eq and 32.1 g PO4-eq, respectively. For herds with a higher production efficiency, a 9% improvement in feed conversion ratio was met by 6%, 15% and 12% decreases in GWP, EP, AP, respectively. Scenario and sensitivity analyses also revealed that (a) a switch to high-protein diets results in lower GWP and higher AP and EP, and (b) reducing transportation distances by sourcing domestically produced wheat and barley does not lower environmental impacts in any notable manner. To improve cross-study comparability of these findings, results based on an auxiliary functional unit, kg liveweight departing the farm gate, are also reported.
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机译：猪肉的生产是全球最消耗的肉，估计每年会产生6.68亿吨二氧化碳当量的温室气体。在包括养猪业在内的各种生产系统中，以谷物为基础的集约化生产被广泛认为是环境的最大污染者，因此必须开发可在可持续性与粮食安全之间取得适当平衡的替代系统。本文使用来自爱尔兰共和国的原始数据集，研究了在不同生产效率下运营的代表性养猪场的生命周期对环境的影响。对于具有平均生产效率的基准农场，估计出屠宰场每千克weight体体重的全球变暖潜能值（GWP），酸化潜能值（AP）和富营养化潜能值（EP）为3.5千克二氧化碳当量，43.8克二氧化硫-eq和32.1 g PO4-eq。对于具有较高生产效率的畜群，饲料转化率提高了9％，GWP，EP，AP分别降低了6％，15％和12％。情景和敏感性分析还显示，（a）改用高蛋白饮食会导致GWP降低和AP和EP升高，并且（b）通过采购国产小麦和大麦来缩短运输距离不会显着降低环境影响。 。为了提高这些研究结果的跨研究可比性，还报告了基于辅助功能单元的结果，即公斤活重离开农场大门。
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