| 1. |
- Röös, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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Minskad klimatpåverkan med vallfoder till gris– beräkning av klimatavtrycket ur ett livscykelperspektiv
- 2022
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Syftet med den här studien var att uppskatta klimateffekten ur ett livscykelperspektiv av att introducera gräs-klövervall som ingrediens i foder till grisar i konventionell svensk grisproduktion. Resultaten visar att klimatavtrycket för ett kg konventionellt griskött kan minskas med cirka 13 procent genom att en del av grisarnas traditionella foder byts ut mot vallfoder. Minskningen beror på i) lägre kvävegiva till vall i jämförelse med spannmål och därmed lägre lustgasutsläpp och lägre utsläpp från tillverkning av mineralgödsel, ii) minskad dieselanvändning, iii) högre skörd för vallen jämfört med andra fodermedel och iv) förfruktseffekter från vallodlingen i övriga grödor. Inkluderas den förväntade inlagringen av kol i mark när vall introduceras i en spannmålsdominerad växtföljd, minskar utsläppen med ytterligare 18 procent. Dock är uppskattningen vad gäller inlagring av kol från atmosfären i mark osäker och dessutom är processen reversibel, vilket gör att denna minskningspotential ska beaktas med viss försiktighet. Det finns flera ytterligare fördelar med att föra in vallodling i grisproduktionen inklusive förbättrad välfärd för grisarna, ökad markbördighet, ökad mångfald av odlade grödor på jordbruksmark som kan gynna biodiversiteten och minskad användning av insatsvaror. För att odla och hantera vallen och kunna använda vallfoder i foderstaten till grisar behövs en annan typ av maskinpark och utfodringsanläggning än vad som används traditionellt inom grisproduktion. Sådan teknik bör dock kunna komma på plats snabbt i och med att sådana system redan används inom mjölk och nötköttsproduktionen. Rådgivare inom grisproduktionen behöver också information och kunskap kring vilka vallgrödor som är lämpliga till grisar samt hur tekniska lösningar för skörd, lagring och hantering av ensilage på gårdsnivå bör ske. Mycket av den kunskapen finns att hämta hos mjölk- och nötköttsproducenter.
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| 2. |
- Zira, Stanley, et al.
(författare)
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A life cycle sustainability assessment of organic and conventional pork supply chains in Sweden
- 2021
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Ingår i: Sustainable Production and Consumption. - : Elsevier BV. - 2352-5509. ; 28, s. 21-38
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most existing life cycle assessment studies that have compared the sustainability of organic and conventional pork supply chains are environmental assessments. The economic and social sustainability dimensions of pork supply chains are currently under-researched. The study reported here was designed to assess the environmental, economic and social sustainability of conventional and organic pork in Sweden. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment was undertaken using 20 indicators expressed per unit product (1000 kg pork fork weight) and per unit area (1000 ha of farmland) for the four main subsystems in pork supply chains: (1) farm and feed production, (2) slaughter, (3) wholesaling and retailing, and (4) consumption. The organic pork supply chain out-performed the conventional chain in 11 of the 20 indicators expressed per unit product and 18 of the 20 indicators expressed per unit area. It was therefore the more sustainable of the two chains in nearly all the indicators expressed per unit area. However, the organic supply chain was less sustainable in some of the indicators expressed per unit product because, more feed per kg of pork was required in organic pork production. Pig welfare improvement leads to higher production costs and environmental impacts. Assessment of all three sustainability dimensions – environmental, economic and social – helps to identify trade-offs between these three pillars of sustainability. However, the selection of indicators influences results, and obtaining environmental, economic and social data simultaneously is challenging.
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| 3. |
- Zira, Stanley, et al.
(författare)
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An assessment of scenarios for future pig production using a One Health approach
- 2022
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Ingår i: Livestock Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 1871-1413 .- 1878-0490. ; 260
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One Health is an approach to achieve better health and well-being outcomes for people, farmed organisms and their shared environment. The One Health approach was used to analyse the impacts on the environment, people and organisms (including the pigs) of three scenarios for future pig production to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses when compared with a Reference case reflecting today's pig production. The scenarios were: Business as usual scenario (AsUsual), Sustainable Feed scenario (SusFeed), and Sustainable Feed and Pigs bred for feed efficiency and better animal welfare scenario (SusFeedPig). In SusFeed, the pig diets were without soybean meal but with locally produced feed ingredients including yeast protein. The pigs had access to an outdoor veranda, silage and straw for enrichment, and were selected using today's breeding goal. In SusFeedPig, pigs had the same feed as in SusFeed, had access to pasture during summer and were selected using an alternative to today's breeding goal with focus on overall feed efficiency and improved animal welfare. In AsUsual, pigs were fed current diets including soybean meal, had no access to a veranda and silage, and pigs were bred based on today's breeding goals. The different scenarios were assessed using a One Health framework with 13 success metrics. The selection and scoring of indicators for success metrics may be subjective because they depend on individual assessments that can be variable. SusFeed performed better than the Reference case on nine success metrics, SusFeedPig on eight and AsUsual on six. Sustainability in all the future scenarios was improved when compared to the Reference case but SusFeed with the alternative breeding goal was the most preferable scenario due to reduced negative effects for the environment, people and farmed organisms.
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| 4. |
- Zira, Stanley, et al.
(författare)
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Applied analytical hierarchical processing in a social sustainability study of pig farming in Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: Book of Abstracts, EAAP. - 1382-6077. ; , s. 485-485
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Poor conditions for human and animals are antecedents of low social sustainability in pig production. Efforts meant to improve social sustainability should prioritize these antecedents in their order of importance. In this pilot study we tested analytical hierarchical processing (AHP) as a method of prioritization of the antecedents of low social sustainability. Five issues for pig farm workers, ve for pigs and three for consumers were identied in a literature review including 7 published articles. We used three experts in Swedish pig production as judges in pairwise comparisons of these issues. The R package AHP was used for the weighting and analysis of judges’ consistency. All the three judges had an internal consistency <0.2 for pig issues, whilst for worker issues only one judge had an internal consistency <0.2. For consumer issues, internal consistency ranged from 0.28 to 1.3 and the weights are thus not presented. For worker issues, low income had the highest relative weight (0.43) followed by low work pleasure (0.27), poor worker health (0.15), long work hours (0.09), and poor communication between farm owners and workers (0.06). For pig issues, poor health (0.30) had the highest weight followed by poor ambient environment (0.24), poor handling at slaughter (0.22), lack of freedom to express normal behaviour (0.20), and weak animal welfare law (0.04). To conclude, the pilot study shows that AHP can be used to weight social sustainability issues using experts but consistency needs to be considered. There is ongoing work to see the effect of increasing the number of judges and also improving the questioning pattern. Based on this pilot study the highest priority for worker issues should be given to income and the least to communication between farmer and workers. For pig issues similar priority should be given to pig health, pig ambient environment, handling at slaughter and freedom to exhibit natural behaviour.
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| 5. |
- Zira, Stanley, et al.
(författare)
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Carbon footprint based on lifetime productivity for future cows selected for resilience to climate-related disturbances
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of science. Advanced materials and devices. - 2468-2284 .- 2468-2179. ; 106, s. 8953-8968
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Droughts, which can affect feed production, are projected to become more common under future climate conditions. In light of this, breeding cattle resilient to changes in feeding regimens is increasingly becoming an important topic. Body reserves can play a crucial role when feed resources are limited. We simulated populations of dairy cows selected with 2 different breeding goals: one reflecting the current breeding goal and the other placing weight on minimum level of body reserves in early lactation and change in body reserves during lactation. We considered this latter as a breeding goal for resilience. We used the 2 dynamic simulation programs ADAM and AQAL to predict performance of the cows after selection. In AQAL, we modeled moderate and severe drought by decreasing feed quality and quantity offered to cows during one year. We compared cows selected with the 2 breeding goals under 3 environments: without disturbances related to climate and with moderate and severe drought. In the environments without disturbances and the moderate drought, the cows selected with the current breeding goal had higher lifetime lactation efficiency (energy invested in milk/ energy acquired from feed) and lower carbon footprint per kilogram of protein in milk and meat than cows selected for resilience. However, with severe drought, cows selected for resilience had higher lifetime lactation efficiency and lower carbon footprint per kilogram of protein in milk and meat than those selected with the current breeding goal. This suggests that cows selected for high productive performance do not perform well under very limiting conditions, leading to increased climate impact. The importance of inclusion of body reserves as a resilience trait in dairy cattle breeding depends on the future environment in which the cows will be used.
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| 6. |
- Zira, Stanley, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental consequences of pig production scenarios using biomass from rotational grass-clover leys as feed
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental technology & innovation. - : Elsevier BV. - 2352-1864. ; 30
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Production of pork based on monoculture cereal-based cropping systems causes sub-stantial environmental pressures and feed-food competition. This study evaluated the environmental consequences of five different scenarios involving inclusion of rotational grass-clover leys and incorporation of grass-clover biomass in pig diets: (1) a conven-tional reference scenario without grass-clover biomass; (2) a conventional scenario with replacement of feed with grass-clover silage in a total mixed ration, i.e., with grass-clover biomass replacing other feed; (3) an organic scenario using grass-clover silage for enrichment purposes only; (4) an organic scenario using grass-clover silage for enrichment purposes and additional grass-clover leys for green manuring; and (5) an organic scenario using grass-clover silage and pasture to replace feed. The functional unit was 1 kg of pork slaughter weight and the system boundary was from cradle to farm gate. We used life cycle assessment, the introductory carbon balance method and human edible feed conversion efficiency to assess the performance of the pig production system. Introducing grass-clover biomass as a total mixed ration in conventional pig diets, reduced the climate impact (-17%), eutrophication (-7.1%), marine eutrophication (-15%), energy use (-13%), and feed-food competition (-20%) per kg of pork meat, while acidification (+2.7%) and land use (+1.5%) were slightly increased compared with the reference. The lower climate impact (without considering soil carbon change) was attributable to reduced fertilizer and diesel needs due to pre-crop effects. Overall, feeding grass-clover biomass decreased several environmental impact categories, feed-food competition and improved cereal-based cropping systems by the introduction of grass-clover leys.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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| 7. |
- Zira, Stanley, et al.
(författare)
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Social life cycle assessment of Swedish organic and conventional pork production
- 2020
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Ingår i: International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0948-3349 .- 1614-7502. ; 25, s. 1957-1975
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose Sustainable animal food systems are increasingly important to society. Yet for pork, the most consumed meat product in Europe, there is no social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) in the literature. The breath and complexity of social issues and lack of data makes the task challenging. This study examines the risk of negative social impacts in Swedish pork production systems and includesworkers,farmers,consumers,local community,society, andpigsas stakeholders. Methods The objective was to assess the risk of negative social impacts for the production and consumption of 1000-kg pork (fork weight-bone free meat including cooking losses) originating from two different systems: organic and conventional pork production. Relevant social sustainability issues for pork production systems were identified through a literature search and a consultative workshop with experts. A life cycle inventory was conducted to collect data for activity variables and compute Social Risk (SR), a measure of the risk of negative social impacts related to a reference (here the average European social conditions). Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) was used to obtain weights for subcategories. The SR scores and the weights were used to calculate Social Risk Time (SRT) that relates the Social Risk to the functional unit by considering the 'exposure' to the risk, and the Social Hotspot Index (SHI), which relates the SRT to the worst possible situation for that system. Results and discussion The conventional pork system had 42% of inventory indicators with SR > 0.5 and the organic pork system had 32%. For all stakeholders, thepig farmhad the largest SRT in both production systems except forworkersin the organic pork system where the soybean farmhad the largest SRT. In the conventional pork system,societyas well asfarmersat thepig farmhad SHI > 0.5 slightly, meaning performing the same as European average. In the organic pork system, SHI < 0.5 for all stakeholders and subsystems. Conclusion Swedish pork production has lower risk of negative social impacts than the average European social conditions for most of the stakeholders:workers,pigs,local community, andconsumers.Farmersandsocietyat the subsystempig farmhave the same risk of negative social impacts as the average European social conditions. Due to the dependence of the results of the chosen reference level, the reliance on certification, and the indicators included, results should be interpreted and used with care.
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| 8. |
- Zira, Stanley, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability assessment of economic, environmental and social impacts, feed-food competition and economic robustness of dairy and beef farming systems in South Western Europe
- 2023
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Ingår i: Sustainable Production and Consumption. - : Elsevier BV. - 2352-5509. ; 36, s. 439-448
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The objective of this study was to evaluate the sustainability of cattle systems in South Western Europe by combining life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) with assessment of feed-food competition and economic robustness. We studied three cattle systems using different proportions of semi-natural pasture, and producing either only beef or milk and beef, i.e. a dairy system with Holstein breed in the lowlands of France with <5% of the total land used being semi-natural pastures (HolSy), a dairy system with Montbeliarde breed in the highlands of France with approximately 25% of the total land used being semi-natural pastures (MonSy), and a pure beef system with Parda de Montana breed in the highlands of Spain with >85% of the total land used being semi-natural pastures (ParSy). The functional unit for LCSA was 1000 kg protein of animal origin and the system boundary was from cradle to farmgate. The cattle production systems were assessed using 27 indicators (LCSA, feed-food competition and robustness). The results indicated that MonSy performed less well for 10 and ParSy for 14 out of the 27 indicators researched when compared to HolSy, the reference case. HolSy was less sensitive to a support payment decrease and had lower social impacts on farmers than the other two systems. MonSy had lower impacts on some environmental indicators, lower life cycle costs, lower social impacts on society, lower human edible feed conversion ratio (i.e. less feed-food competition) for fat and less sensitivity to a meat price decrease than the other two systems. ParSy had lower terrestrial and freshwater ecotoxicity, lower human edible feed conversion ratio and land use ratio for protein, lower social impact for the local community, and a higher internal rate of return than the other systems. ParSy had less sensitivity to feed and energy price increases, and increased rented land and loan interest costs than the other systems. Producing both meat and milk at the same farm increased vulnerability to economic changes. Semi-natural pasture based dairy in highland Europe needs support payments to keep the farm economically afloat in times of economic changes e.g. due to shocks.
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| 9. |
- Zira, Stanley
(författare)
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Towards sustainable livestock systems: Developing and applying methods for broad sustainability assessment of pig and cattle systems
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Meat and milk are valuable foods from livestock that contribute to quality of life for humans but have negative environmental, social and economic impacts. Measuring such impacts in sustainability assessments requires methods with a broad and deep focus. The overall aim of this thesis was to further develop sustainability assessment methods to broadly evaluate livestock systems and to use these methods to increase knowledge on how future sustainable pig and cattle production systems can be developed. Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA), Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) and the One Health framework were developed further and used to assess the impacts of the different livestock systems i.e. organic and conventional Swedish pig production, future pig production scenarios and three cattle systems (cropland based dairy, grassland based dairy and grassland based suckler beef production) in southern Europe. S-LCA, LCSA and the One Health framework sustainability methods can assess important sustainability aspects for pig and cattle production systems and identify important trade-offs. Organic pig production had lower social risk for negative social impacts for pigs and consumers than conventional pig production but higher environmental impacts per kg for eutrophication, acidification and fossil depletion. Grassland based suckler beef production was more resilient to economic losses due to changes in interest rates, input prices and output prices, produced more protein (in meat) than found in the feed and had higher profitability compared to the other cattle systems. However, grassland based beef production had higher eutrophication, acidification and fossil depletion compared to the dairy systems. Changing the breeding goal of pigs, changing the diet composition by including silage and having other protein sources than soybean, and using renewable energy sources in future pig production can further reduce negative impacts.
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