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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Around the world, there has been a movement towards organic, local and traditional foods. You might expect that the shoppers at Whole Foods, filling their baskets with organically produced food, are our brightest hope for achieving a sustainable planet. While it may seem comforting to believe that organically produced food can help mitigate environmental damage and help shift the world towards a more sustainable food system, that belief is not correct when it comes to eggs. Studies around the world have found that organic and free-range eggs have a larger carbon footprint than eggs produced in a cage system, due primarily to lower productivity and higher feed consumption. How to make all agriculture more sustainable is the most important question for farmers and consumers, not the more limited issue of whether organic food is better or worse for the environment.
True long-term sustainability, in the words of World Wildlife Fund expert Jason Clay, means looking beyond organic marketing claims and figuring out how to produce more with less land, less water and less pollution, so we wont be the only species left living on this planet.
Making egg production more sustainable should start with feed and the feed conversion rate. Feed accounts for 76 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and 92 percent of the ecological footprint associated with the poultry industry. Much of this environmental impact is due to the use of chemical fertilizer, which is notably absent from the production of organic poultry feed. However, even though organic layers eat feed that is much less energy-intensive, they consume more feed overall and produce fewer eggs than their non-organic counterparts. How do we weigh the pros and cons of organic feed production (more environmentally friendly feed, but also a larger quantity required) against industrial production (less environmentally friendly feed, but a lower quantity required)? Life Cycle Assessment Scientists have come up with a solution called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is the most holistic method of evaluating the environmental cost of a product or industry over a period of anywhere from 50 years to 500 years. This approach is effective because it looks beyond the direct environmental impact of an activity, and takes into account damage caused by interrelated supporting activities.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Consider your car, for example.
A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) does much more than just measure tailpipe emissions. It also estimates how much pollution was generated in order to: Drill for oil, refine it into gasoline and ship it to your town Manufacture the steel that went into your car
Applying Life Cycle Assessment to Agriculture For agriculture, an LCA takes into account resource use, like land or fossil fuels; emission of pollutants, such as ammonia or methane; and the resource use of supporting activity, like transportation and farm equipment. For poultry, lower bird performance overrides the benefits of organic feed (Williams, Audsley and Sandars, 2006). Shifting U.S. egg production to organic methods would increase the industrys carbon footprint by 33.3 percent (a carbon footprint equivalent to putting 1.4 million additional cars on the road for one year), while energy use would rise by 15 percent (equivalent to 1.9 million barrels of oil per year). As the world population continues to grow and as diets in the emerging world increasingly resemble those in the developed world, identifying environmentally friendly livestock products and adopting sustainable production methods take on truly global implications. What might have been sustainable for a world with 6 billion people probably would not be sustainable for a world population of more than 9 billion. To get the world back on a more sustainable footing will require greater intensification of agriculture through more efficient production systems. Over the last 40 years, huge gains were made in addressing global food shortages and malnutrition. From 1970 to 2000, global daily caloric intake per capita increased from 2,400 to 2,790 calories, and is projected to rise to 3,150 calories by 2050 (FAO, 2006). Rising incomes and changing consumer preferences over the next four decades will require livestock production to double. The challenge will be to expand egg production, while freezing the industrys overall footprint and protecting the planets biodiversity and ecosystems. Agricultural intensification offers a pathway for conserving biological diversity, and reducing the industrys environmental footprint.
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Feed accounts for 80 percent of energy use, 76 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and 92 percent of the ecological footprint of the broiler supply chain in the U.S., from cradle to farm gate. 1
Poultry Feed Energy use GHG Em. (kg CO2 equivalent) Ecological footprint (m2) Hatchery Chicks In-barn Energy Use Litter Management
2% <1% 1%
18% 12% 3%
<1% 12% 4%
Comparison burdens of production in some alternative egg production systems (per 20,000 eggs) 2
Impacts and Resources Used Primary energy used (MJ) GWP100 (kg 100 year CO2 equivalent) Non-organic Organic 100% Cage, Non-organic 100% Free-range, Non-organic
14,100 5,530
16,100 7,000
13,600 5,250
15,400 6,180
The United States produced about 5.3 million metric tons of eggs in 2007 .
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Shifting from 100 percent cage/non-organic layer production to organic production would require the U.S. egg industry to increase its layer flock by 13 percent and increase feed consumption by 24 percent4. This shift would:
Increase energy consumption by an additional 11.3 billion megajoules (MJ). A barrel of oil contains about 6,000 MJ of energy.
Increase the industrys Global Warming Potential (GWP) by 33.3 percent, or 7.9 million tons of CO2.
This increase would be equivalent to depleting an additional 1.9 million barrels of oil.
This increase would be equivalent to putting 1.4 million more cars on the road.
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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Based on estimates from Williams et al.
A M O R E S U S TA I N A B L E E G G I N D U S T R Y
How to make all agriculture more sustainable is therefore the most important question for farmers and consumers, not the more limited question of whether organic food is better or worse for the environment. Industrialization and intensification of egg production results in more eggs and requires less feed, less energy and fewer resources than organic methods. Even though housed layers have a smaller carbon footprint than organic layers, there is still room for improvement. Feed is the largest source of greenhouse gasses, and organic feeds have lower energy needs than non-organic feeds. Using less energy-intensive feed could be a best practice for the industry to consider. Impact in the Emerging World The true implications of industrialization and intensification will be felt in the emerging world, which already accounts for about 70 percent of world egg production5. By utilizing existing best practices, emerging countries could boost bird productivity by about 70 percent. Bringing the emerging world up to the developed worlds productivity levels would boost world egg production by 48 percent without adding a single bird. Per Capita Egg Production
(in kilograms of hen eggs)
China Brazil World Average Nigeria Emerging Countries Africa 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Now Potential
Emerging
Emerging
Developed
Developed
Now
Potential
World Average
Emerging Countries
Developed Countries
Over the next 40 years, rising incomes and changing consumer preferences will cause livestock products to increase from 17 percent of food energy to 30 percent, requiring that meat production double from 2001 levels. GHG emissions per unit of production would need to be cut in half for the industry to simply maintain its current level of GWP (Pelletier, 2008). Although there is still much work to be done, intensified production shows how the world can produce more eggs with less land, less feed and less energy than any other production technology. Intensified production may not be organic, but it is sustainablewhich is the wiser, long-term choice for the planet.
Australia, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and North America combined account for 29.8% of world hen egg production by weight and 27.0% by number of eggs with only 20% of layers, according to FAOSTAT.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
de Vries, M., & de Boer, I. (2009). Comparing Environmental Impacts for Livestock Products: A Review of Life Cycle Assessments. Livestock Science. FAO. (2006). World Agriculture Towards 2030-2050. Prospects for Food, Nutrition, Agriculture and Major Commodity Groups. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. Katajajuuri, J. (2008). Experiences and Improvement PossibilitiesLCA Case Study of Broiler Chicken Production. Zurich. Matson, P. Vitousek, P. (2006). Agricultural Intensification: Will land spared from farming be land spared for nature? Conservation Biology Volume 20, No. 3, 709-710. Pelletier, N., (2008). Environmental Performance in the U.S. Broiler Poultry Sector: Life cycle energy use and greenhouse gas, ozone depleting, acidifying and eutrophying emissions. Agricultural Systems 98, 6773. Pimentel D., Williamson S., Alexander C., Gonzalez-Pagan O., Kontak C. and Mulkey S. (2008). Reducing Energy Inputs in the U.S. Food System. Human Ecology 36: 459-471. Steinfeld, H., Gerber, P., Wasssenaar, T., Castel, V., Rosales, M. and de Haan, C. (2006). Livestocks Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. Williams, A.G., Audsley, E. and Sandars, D.L. (2006). Determining the Environmental Burdens and Resource Use in the Production of Agricultural and Horticultural Commodities. Main Report. Defra Research Project IS0205. Bedford: Cranfield University and Defra. Available on: www.silsoe.cranfield.ac.uk and www.defra.gov.uk
C O N TA C T U S
If you have comments on this white paper or would like further information about sustainability in global egg production, please contact the Novus Sustainability team by sending an email to tricia.beal@novusint.com or send a request in writing to the address on the right. Novus International, Inc. Attn: Tricia Beal 20 Research Park Drive St. Charles, MO 63304 United States of America