Multicriteria environmental assessment of contrasting pig farming systems
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In France, the image of the conventional intensive mode of pig production is very poor because it is associated with environmental degradation. Alternative and more extensive ways of pig production exist, certified by a quality label, such as organic and «Label Rouge» (LR). However, the environmental impacts of these systems have not yet been assessed. The aim of this study was to produce a multicriteria environmental assessment of three contrasting pig farming systems: conventional Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), LR and organic, using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. Average, favourable and unfavourable scenarios were defined and evaluated for each production mode for the following impact categories: eutrophication, climate change, acidification, terrestrial toxicity, energy use, land use and pesticide use. Two functional units (FU) were used: impacts were expressed per kilo of pig produced and per hectare. The choice of the FU strongly affects results. We propose that the choice of the FU be adapted to the impact category: one hectare for regional impacts and one kilo of pig for global impacts. Expressing results this way, the organic scenario appears better for regional impacts (except for terrestrial toxicity for which it is equivalent) and the GAP scenario is better with respect to global impacts. LCA allows to identify “hot-spots” for each system. Systems using straw litter based housing, such as organic and LR, are worse as regards climate change (3.38 kg CO2-eq/kg of pig for LR, 3.94 for organic versus 2.3 for GAP). Acidification is one of the major drawbacks of the GAP scenario (80.1 kg SO2-eq/ha for GAP versus 36.7 for LR and 38.2 for organic). Pesticide use is a common disadvantage of GAP and LR. Additionally, all the scenarios contribute to heavy metal accumulation in the soil. Finally, the use of favourable and unfavourable scenarios appears to be an effective way to estimate the general uncertainty of LCA results.