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According to the study “A 50-Year Comparison of the Carbon Footprint and Resource Use of the U.S. Swine Herd: 1959-2009”, the U.S. swine industry has managed to stabilize its overall resource demand over the past 50 years. This feat is remarkable because pork production, as measured by pounds of dressed carcass leaving the farm gate, has nearly doubled in that same period. What the swine industry has been able to accomplish very successfully over the past 50 years is to significantly reduce its environmental impact and natural resource use nearly 50% across the board per 1,000 pounds of dressed carcass produced.
The U.S. swine industry produces pigs far more efficiently today (2009) than in 1959. The number of hogs marketed has increased 29% (87.6 million in 1959 to 112.6 million in 2009 after removing market hogs imported directly to harvest) from a breeding herd that is 39% smaller. The efficiency gain is even more impressive when measured against the total dressed carcass weight harvested. Dressed carcass yield leaving the farm has nearly doubled in 50 years from 12.1 billion pounds to 22.8 billion pounds. This increase in productivity has resulted in an increase of 2,231 pounds (2.5x) of carcass harvested annually per sow-year. Today, it takes only five hogs (breeding and market) to produce the same amount of pork that required eight hogs in 1959.
A near doubling of pork output at the farm gate has only required a 25% increase in annual feedstuffs. As a result, feed efficiency as measured over the entire population, including maintenance of the breeding herd, has improved 33% from 6.6 pounds of feed per pound of dressed carcass weight produced at the farm gate to just 4.4 pounds of feed. This improvement is attributable to many factors including increased average daily gain, dietary changes, improved feed conversion, a smaller breeding herd and fewer numbers of idle pigs in the breeding herd.
Much like feed utilization, total water demand for animal consumption has increased only 11% from 32.7 million gallons in 1959 to 36.2 million gallons in 2009. This has resulted in water consumption dropping from 2.7 gallons per pound of dressed carcass to 1.6 gallons, a 41% improvement. Most likely this improvement is due to a reduction in the size of the breeding herd and animals going to harvest at a much younger age today than in 1959.
The carbon intensity also known as the carbon footprint (CO2e) of U.S. swine production to the farm gate has increased 23% in the past 50 years (45.7 million metric tonnes (MMT) to 56.1 MMT). This is to be expected given the increase in the number of pigs going to market and compares very favorably to the 88% increase in dressed carcass weight production during the same period. As a result, the carbon footprint per pound of dressed carcass produced has been reduced 35% from 3.8 kg/CO2e to 2.5 kg/CO2e. This highlights the positive impact of improved efficiency in the total swine production chain on resource use.
April 2013/ Pork Checkoff/ United States.
http://www.pork.org
