Dr. Denise Beaulieu, an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan, said that pork is relatively small in terms of global greenhouse gas output. The output from pork is probably less than 2 per cent of overall greenhouse gas output. Consumption of pork is increasing worldwide, and one of the most highly consumed meat products in the world.
“So if it increases, we don’t want to be going in the wrong direction in terms of global greenhouse gas output.”
Dr. Beaulieu said CO2, methane CH4, and nitrous oxide are the leading greenhouse gases of concern. They’re not equal in terms of global warming potential, so they calculate the different global warming potential from those gases. Methane is primarily from the pig and fermentation of the manure; nitrous oxide is also from fermentation.
“For example, we feed maybe excess protein and CO2 also is from the manure or the animal respiration,” she said. “Those are the main gases that we measure, and those are the commonly measured gases when we’re looking at greenhouse gases from livestock production.”
Research conducted by the University of Saskatchewan shows pork producers can reduce their environmental footprints while lowering their feed costs by incorporating low-cost, high fibre ingredients into their rations.
Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan examined the carbon footprint left when feeding low-cost, high fibre feed ingredients to pigs, specifically wheat mill run and culled peas.
Dr. Beaulieu said by considering greenhouse gas output when choosing feed ingredients; pork producers can reduce their environmental footprints while lowering their feed costs.
Preliminary data put through a computer model shows that using a by-product, for example, in the wheat mill run, offsets most carbon input for that feed production because they’re producing flour for humans. It is like spreading out that carbon over different uses.
“Whether using the wheat mill run or peas, where we can put into the model the agronomic benefits and the decreased requirements for nitrogen fertilizer,” said Dr. Beaulieu. “We can show an overall decrease in greenhouse gas output or the global warming potential of pork production by using either these by-products or by incorporating peas into the ration.”
Dr. Beaulieu said this becomes a win-win for crop farmers and pork producers who can show a lower environmental footprint than they might show if using grain explicitly grown to produce the pork.
Producers use these ingredients to save costs.
She said by adapting the diet, by choosing these by-products or ingredients to reduce greenhouse gas output, they show those positive benefits.
The other significant benefit is that producers use these ingredients because they cost less, making sense to incorporate more into the pigs’ diets.
Despite the higher fibre content of many of these ingredients, they do not see a measurable increase in greenhouse gas production from the pig or the manure.
“We might see some decrease in growth because of the high fibre content of these ingredients, but that minimal and that goes into the model,” said Dr. Beaulieu.
Even if it might take a couple of extra days to get the pigs to market, all of those inputs
go into the model, so the bottom line is certainly no health implications, and any production effects are minor. That goes into the model to look at the overall impact on greenhouse gas output.
As part of the research examining the implications of including high fibre alternative feed ingredients into swine rations, the researchers use an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada model.
Dr. Beaulieu expects this work to interest pork producers considering pork production’s carbon footprint and those developing policies to lessen agriculture’s impact on climate change. •
— By Harry Siemens