LIVESTOCK-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION SYSTEMS HENNING STEINFELD Senior Officer (Livestock Development Planning), Animal Production and Health Division, FAO, Rome, Italy.

Overview

Industrial production of pork, poultry and (feedlot) beef and mutton is the fastest growing form of animal production. In 1996, it provided more than half the global pork and poultry (broiler) production and 10 percent of the beef and mutton production. This represented 43 percent of the total global meat production, up from 37 percent in 1991-93. Moreover, it provided more than two-thirds of the global egg supply. Geographically, the industrialized countries dominate industrial pig and poultry production accounting for 52 percent of the global industrial pork production and 58 percent of the poultry production. Asia contributes 31 percent of the world's pork production (Sere and Steinfeld, 1996).

Industrial ruminant production is concentrated in Eastern Europe, the ex-Soviet Union and in the OECD countries. Typical examples are large-scale feedlots in the USA and in the formally centrally planned economies. Industrial sheep feedlots are found in the Near East, North Africa and the USA.

The industrial production system is open both in physical and economic terms. It depends on outside supply of feed, energy and other inputs. Technology, capital and infrastructure requirements are based on large economies of scale and, because of this, production efficiency is high in terms of output per unit of feed or per man-hour, less so when measured in terms of energy units. Yet as the world's main provider of eggs, poultry meat and pork at competitive prices, it meets most of the escalating demands for low cost animal products in rapidly growing urban centres of the developing world.

Environmental challenges

Because of its open nature and many interfaces with the natural resource base, the industrial ‘bio-industry’ system signifies for many the epitome of what is wrong with animal production. The industrial scale implies large herd/flock sizes, large volumes of waste, high animal health risks, and often less attention to animal welfare. It has multiple opportunities to dump its waste products without accounting for the environmental costs. The biggest problem, however, is the over-concentration of animals in areas of high human population density with little viable opportunities to utilize waste products on land. The biggest challenge is to establish policies and identify technologies that will help in bringing animal waste in line with the assimilative capacities of land.

Status quo of interactions

The industrial system acts directly on land, water, air and biodiversity through the emission of animal waste, use of fossil fuels and substitution of animal genetic resources. In addition, it affects the golbal land base indirectly, through its effects on the arable land to satisfy its feed concentrate requirements. Ammonia emissions from manure storage and application lead to localized acid rain and ailing forests, for example in European countries. Also, the industrial system requires the use of uniform animals of similar genetic composition. This contributes to within-breed erosion of domestic animal diversity.

Animal Waste

Land, water and air are the environmental components mostly affected by the concentration of animals and waste production. Manure is the main agent having effect, mostly during storage and after application on the land. Pigs and poultry excrete some 65 to 70 percent, respectively, of their nitrogen and phosphate intake. Nitrogen, under aerobic conditions, can evaporate in the form of ammonia with toxic, eutrophic and acidifying effects on eco-systems (Wilson and Skeffington, 1994). A greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide (N₂O) is formed as part of the denitrification process with particularly harmful effects on the environment. Nitrates are leached into the groundwater posing human health hazards, and run-off and leaching of nitrogen directly lead to eutrophication and bio-diversity loss in surface waters and connected ecosystems. Phosphorus, on the other hand, is rather stable in the soil, but, when P saturation is reached after long-term high level application of manure, leaching occurs and this also causes eutrophication.

Ammonia and other nitrogenous gases result from the digestion of protein, part of which is lost in manure and urine. Growing pigs, for example, excrete 70 percent of the protein in feed while beef cattle excrete 80 to 90 percent and broiler chickens 55 percent (Jongbloed and Lenis, 1992). Ammonia, in high concentrations in the air, can have a direct effect on plant growth, by damaging leaf absorption capacities but its indirect effect on soil chemistry is even more important. Ammonia acidifies the soil, interferes with the absorption of other essential plant elements, particularly in nitrogen-poor ecosystems such as forests. Livestock production is a major source of ammonia emissions in the industrial world. For example, of the 208,000 tons of ammonia emitted in the Netherlands in 1993, 181,000 tons was estimated to come from manure (Heij, 1995). This was about 55 percent of the total acid deposits in the Netherlands, industry and traffic being other important contributors.

The various forms of nitrogen losses lead to much reduced levels available for crop nutrition. Plant uptake and use depend on a series of other factors such as species, climatic and soil conditions. According to Bos and de Wit (1996), 20, 50 and 44 percent of the nitrogen excreted by pigs, broilers and laying hens are lost to the atmosphere as NH₃. Because of its different chemical properties, phosphorus losses are insignificant because phosphorus is not very mobile in the soil.

The amount of N, P, K and other nutrients available to the crop within the soil determine the fertilizer value of manure. Further significant losses may occur depending on the type of stable and manure management system ( Safeley et al., 1992) and thus define the direct environmental impact. Substantial nitrogen and phosphorus losses also occur when manure is applied on the land. The spreading of manure directly on the land can lead to nitrogen leaching into water as nitrates and contamination of surface waters. This in turn leads to high algae growth, eutrophication and, as a result damages aquatic ecosystems. Not all soils are equally susceptible to nutrient loading and contamination. Sandy soils with low cation exchange capacity and, consequently, poor retention characteristics and high run-off , are particularly at risk.

Heavy metals

Copper and zinc, which are essential minerals in animal nutrition, are deliberately added to concentrate feed whereas other heavy metals, in particular cadmium, are introduced via feed phosphates. Only 5 to 15 percent of metal additives are absorbed by animals, the rest is excreted. Soils, on which poultry and pig manure are continuously applied at high rates, accumulate heavy metals, jeopardizing the good functioning of soil, contaminating crops and posing human health risks (Conway and Pretty, 1991)

Fossil fuels

The industrial system is a poor converter of fossil energy. Fossil energy is a major input of intensive livestock production systems, mainly indirectly for the production of feed . Brand and Melman (1993) show in case studies that, typically, feed accounts for 70 to 75 percent of the total energy input except for veal production where it is almost 90 percent. Energy output for livestock products comprises food and non-food items. Southwell and Rothwell (1977) calculated output/input ratios of 0. 38, 0. 11 and 0. 32 for pork, poultry and eggs respectively, considering fossil energy only.

A large portion of non-food energy output is in the form of manure and the potential for recovery of this energy in the form of methane has greatly increased in recent years. The heavy concentration of animals in certain regions, particularly of pigs and poultry, has given rise to the development of large- scale processing for use elsewhere. Most problems lie in high energy expenditure for drying and for transport.

Biodiversity

The industrial system has a threefold effect on species wealth through:

• Its demand for concentrate feed , which changes land use and intensifies cropping. The production of feed grains, in particular, adds additional stress on biodiversity through habitat loss and damages in ecosystem functioning.
• Waste production and its effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. These effects are often geographically confined to areas of high livestock densities. Eutrophication and destruction of habitats is a common phenomenon in parts of north eastern Europe and the USA as well as in the densely populated areas of the developing world, in particular Asia, and to a lesser extent, Latin America. Ammonia emissions lead to acidification of particularly fragile habitats and so causes losses in biodiversity.
• The requirement for extremely uniform animals of similar genetic composition contributes to within-breed erosion of domestic animal diversity.

Environmental benefits of industrial production systems

First, the rapid development of ‘modern’ industrial pig and poultry systems helps to reduce the total feed requirements of the global livestock sector to meet a given demand. It may therefore alleviate pressures for deforestation and degradation of rangelands, such as is happening in parts of Latin America and Asia, thus saving land and preserving biodiversity. Second, the feed-saving technologies developed for this system can be effective at any scale and therefore can be successfully transferred to mixed farming systems. The same holds true for waste prevention and treatment technologies which have been developed following regulations applied mainly to the industrial system. There, the resource-saving and waste management technologies generated by the industrial systems bring benefits to the sector as a whole.

Driving forces in industrial production

Population growth, rising income and urbanization are the fundamental driving forces determining growth of industrial livestock production. Globally, industrial animal production is the fastest growing sector, with over 4 and 5 percent growth per year in pork and broiler production, respectively. The Annual growth for eggs is 3.8 percent and for mutton and beef 2.5 percent. Driven by rising incomes and rapid urbanization, Asia experienced a staggering growth of 9 percent per year in industrial pig and poultry production over the last decade, trailed by Latin America with a strong growth in poultry.

As shown above, it is not industrial production per se which creates environmental problems but the fact that production units tend to concentrate in certain areas. The reasons are the following:

• Transport costs and market opportunities are the main determinants. The industrial system. especially for pigs and poultry, is characterized by a significant, and often exclusive, use of feeds of high energy content (mainly cereals, oilseeds and their by-products). This high energy density allows movement of feeds over longer distances than perishable animal products, even though the quantities are larger. These relative costs encourage production, slaughter and meat processing facilities to be located near urban centres. The large number of industrial units being established around Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai and Calcutta demonstrate this incentive. Furthermore, in net grain importing developed countries, with abundant road and cooling infrastructure, large-scale industrial operations are located close to ports, such as pig operations in the Netherlands and northern Germany.
• The agrarian structure has favoured high livestock densities and the evolution of industrial-type systems where shrinking farm size forced farmers to engage in value-adding activities without sufficient land available, such as in some southern parts of Germany and the Netherlands, or to abandon agriculture altogether. This move has been favoured by price subsidies with the main objective of supporting rural populations.
• Different policy settings within a country or free-market-zone through, for example, tax advantages or low environmental standards, may lead to concentration of the industrial system. An example is where intensive poultry, and more recently also pig production moved, from the corn belt of the USA to the southern states and, in the EU, to Italy and Spain.

Policies

In the past, industrial and intensive mixed farming systems have benefited from policy distortions and the absence of regulations or their enforcement and, in many cases, this vacuum has given this system a competitive edge over land-based systems. Furthermore, some policies have misdirected resource use and encouraged the development of technologies which are inefficient outside the distorted context. In the EU, for example, high domestic prices for beef, pork and milk have benefited industrial production. In the Near East, small ruminant feedlots are heavily dependent on subsidized feed, and this has encouraged inefficient feed use. Likewise, in the former centrally planned economies, feedlots were based on heavily subsidized feed grain and on subsidized fuel and transport. In many developing countries, there are not only direct subsidies on feed but also on energy. As energy is a major direct and indirect cost item in industrial production systems, economy-wide policies often tend to favour industrial production over grazing systems and mixed farming.

Finally, in practically no country in the world, is the industrial system charged with the full environmental costs of production. It appears that societies prefer the cheap supply of animal products over the functions of the ecosystems concerned. Self-sufficiency in animal products and supply of high-value food commodities to urban populations seem to be overriding policy objectives, particularly in developing countries.

Technology and policy options

In the developed world, the pollution of land, water and air has raised acute awareness of the environmental problems associated with industrial livestock production. This has, in many cases, triggered the establishment of policies and regulatory measures that address these problems. To the contrary, the absence of regulations and their enforcement, together with a surge in demand and a continued indifference about growing environmental hazards in the developing countries call for immediate action. The challenge is to identify and mix the appropriate technologies and policies that suit local circumstances.

Policies and regulations

• Regulatory instruments are imposed to control the distribution and concentration of livestock production and introduce technical control systems. Some of these regulations are relatively easy to enforce whereas others, for example the maximum permitted amount of manure per unit area, are more difficult. The regulatory approach is most efficient in situations of point source pollutions, i.e where the polluter can be unmistakably identified and where there are strong institutions. In countries with weak institutions, the enforcement of regulations at reasonable social cost remain a major challenge and limits the validity of this approach. Compliance with regulations affects the cost of production and may therefore influence regional distribution. Examples include limits on the number of animals in most of the member states of the EU, taxes on surplus animals as in Belgium (Manale, 1991), taxes on surplus P (most EU countries ), a ban on direct discharge of manure into surface waters (USA, Malaysia) and the establishment of nutrient management plans (Indonesia, USA, Europe). Guidelines on manure storage and application methods, timing, crops and quantities are available in practically all countries with high animal densities.
• Zoning can regulate regional distribution. Zoning is an important policy for controlling animal manure storage and processing, not only for environmental reasons but also for concerns of human health and rational regional development. Zoning has been important both in environmental and in regional development policies, as well as in successfully moving industrial production units away from urban centres in OECD countries. An important prerequisite for successful zoning is good infrastructure because animal products will have to be transported over larger distances. Marketing and processing infrastructure must therefore be taken into account when defining zones in order to make the best use of investment. The creation of confined industrial ‘parks’, with prescribed and sometimes shared facilities for waste collection and treatment, offers opportunities to fully charge industrial production systems with environmental costs while still maintaining advantages of market access and economies of scale. Governments have frequently established guidelines for the siting of production units, particularly to protect urban settlements from obnoxious smells. Zoning, when done within a comprehensive area development plan, also allows for common waste collection and treatment facilities to be shared by a number of producers.

  A trend to rational zoning is not only fostered through environmental concerns but also by changes in overall policies, often triggered by the removal of government interventions and trade liberalization. In the Near East, for example, industrial small ruminant systems have been kept viable through subsidies on grains and are increasingly under pressure because of the financial requirements to maintain these subsidies.

• The most efficient and direct financial instrument would be to internalize all environmental costs into the consumer price. However, implementation of such policies is not easy. First, there is a lack of accurate economic evaluation of these costs, for example for biodiversity and some gaseous emissions and some indirect costs (soil erosion of feed production, for example). Initial calculations point to an increase of 10 to 15 percent in cost price. Second, unequal application of the inclusion of environmental costs in the product price puts some producers at a disadvantage.

  Current financial instruments therefore focus on reducing emission of nitrogen and phosphates and other potential pollutants, particularly in susceptible and already burdened areas. The levies and taxes currently imposed on the intensive mixed and industrial systems in pratically all developed countries fall into this category. Others are:

  • Removal of subsidies on concentrates to increase the cost of feed concentrate - intensive production and to favour land-based systems over the industrial system. In a more indirect way, removal of subsidies on, or taxation of, fossil fuel may have a similar effect by raising the cost of feed. Government income from such sources could be used to alleviate environmental problems.
  • Removal of import restrictions on materials and equipment that improve feed efficiency, such as amino-acids to improve protein, enzymes to improve phosphate digestion and feeding equipment that restrict intake. These technologies lead, indirectly, to lower waste loads through better feed conversion.
  • Subsidies for investment or running costs to improve the adoption of emission control technologies. For example, subsidies for constructing manure storage facilities are given in many EU countries. In the USA, cost-sharing and state revolving funds have been established for manure storage sheds and dead bird composters.
  • A system of tradable manure emission quota would limit waste production and still create incentives for efficient resource use. Marketable permits and pollution trading is based on the establishment of payment per unit of pollution or the use of pollution reduction credits.

Technologies

The above policies have been accompanied by the introduction of a wide range of new techniques. Because of the commercial and demand-driven nature of the industrial system, development and transfer of technologies are usually not a problem. A whole range of technologies exists that could alleviate the environmental burden created by this system and seek improvement in two areas:

1. Reduction of nitrogen and phosphate excretion by improving feed utilization can be achieved through:

   • Introduction of multi-phase feeding in order to match feed composition to the needs of the individual animal classes. By better adjusting the nutrient supply to the needs of animals, less waste is produced and therefore less nitrogen and phosphates are released in waste and into the environment.
   • Improving the accuracy of determining nitrogen and phosphate requirements, followed by better balancing of feeds with these essential nutrients. In this respect, important gains have already been obtained in better balancing pig and poultry rations with essential amino-acids, the building blocks of feed proteins. For example, a combination of better balanced feed, improved digestibility and the inclusion of synthetic amino acids, allows for a substantial reduction of the protein content in feed and, as a result for a reduction of nitrogen excretion by 20 to 40 percent (Van der Zijpp, 1992). Concentrate conversion rates range between 2.5 to 3 kg feed dry matter/kg liveweight gain in pigs, 2.0 to 2.5 kg feed/kg of liveweight gain in broilers, and even less for eggs. They have been reduced by at least 30 to 50 percent since the '60s; for example, the average feed conversion of pigs in the Netherlands in 1957 was 3.5 kg feed per kg liveweight gain (Grashuis, 1958). Through selection and better feed formulation, there is considerable potential for further improvement.
   • Increasing diet digestibility. Spectacular improvements have been obtained with the addition of an enzyme (phytase) for catalysing the digesting of phosphates in feed. The same enzyme might also increase the availability of zinc in feed, reducing the need for feed additives;
   • Promoting feeding systems which reduce intake and stop the buffet-style, ad libitum feeding which was popular in the 1980s.

2. Reduce the emission from manure storage and during application. Nutrient losses from manure in stables and during storage can be reduced through improved collection and storage techniques. In animal buildings, manure is stored either under a solid floor, under a slatted floor, or within a housing system with litter. A large part of ammonia emissions comes from the manure surface in storage, either under the slatted floor or in open tanks. The main focus has to be on reducing nitrogen losses, most of which are in the form of ammonia from the manure surface. Possibilities are:

   • solid storage systems which collect the faeces only for storage in bulk, and have low gaseous emissions;
   • liquid or slurry systems where animals are kept on slatted floors and the manure and urine are collected and stored in large tanks;
   • lagoon systems consist of flushing systems using large amounts of water. Nitrogen losses and methane emissions are high;
   • covered tanks and manure kept under solid floors in stables significantly reduce emission problems. Reductions in emissions of 80 to 90 percent can be achieved by covering storage tanks. (Voorburg, 1994)

Methods that efficiently re-use energy and nutrients in manure in cases where manure is not directly used for agriculture. Biogas plants of all sizes and different levels of sophistication exist. They not only recover the energy contained in manure but also eliminate most of the animal and human health problems associated with micro-biological contamination by micro-organisms. Other methods of controlling the waste load are purifying and drying the manure; reducing nutrient losses during and after application of manure on soils. Injection or swad application of manure into the subsoil and appropriate timing significantly reduces losses. Nitrification inhibitors can be added to the slurry to decrease leaching from the soil under wet conditions.

Large-scale manure processing is possible where intensive production is concentrated in certain zones but that is often not viable economically. The efficient use of manure for feed and energy production requires high capital investments which often cannot be borne by individual farmers.

Recycling manure by feeding it back to livestock, including fish (Müller, 1980) is practised only on a limited scale. In addition to widespread reluctance to use manure as feed, mainly originating from fear of health hazards, most types of manure have a low nutritive value with the exception of poultry manure which is of a reasonable quality. In intensive production systems with large amounts of collectable manure, cheaper feeds are also available, while in production systems where utilization of low quality feeds is common, high collection and opportunity costs (manure as fertilizer or fuel) prohibit the use of manure as feed.

Conclusions

Stricter environmental standards and corresponding incentives to a better balanced land and animal distribution could be a powerful tool to promote rural and agricultural development: prices for animal products would increase, providing land-based production incentives to intensify; and the development would be more decentralized, creating employment and marketing opportunities outside the large urban centres. Such a process will have to be monitored carefully so as not to lose the technological edge by removing economies of scale and functioning infrastructure and needs to be seen in a regional development context. As has been shown, the industrial system obtains its advantage in efficiency through a combination of factors:

• the use of capital intensive and advanced technologies and resultant economies of scale;
• the exploitation of market opportunities, both at input and output level;
• a shift to pigs and poultry as better feed converters.

This has important implications for the future. The analysis shows that most expansion and productivity growth will have to be sustained through the provision of concentrate feed, which normally would require additional land. The establishment of proper controls for the industrial system would then lead to intensifying livestock production through better feed conversions, and intensifying crop production aiming at higher yields. Both will reduce the land requirements for given volumes of final products and alleviate pressures on habitats and biodiversity.

Following the line of argument, measures to foster biodiversity and protection of natural resources would encourage improvements in feed conversion by removing obstacles and providing incentives for a more efficient use of feed. Large opportunities lie in astute pricing of concentrate feed and in providing access to related technologies. A practical difficulty lies in the crop-country nature of measures and effects when feed is imported and international agreements will need to be found.

In conclusion, the industrial system poses a large range of environmental problems but also offers many possible solutions. The world's human population will increase from today's 5.5 billion to around 10 billion by the year 2030, i.e. almost double. With increasing incomes, urbanization and ageing populations, the world demand for animal products is likely to triple, perhaps quadruple.

Neither the grazing nor the mixed farming system, as we know it, will be able to satisfy this increase in demand. The greatest part of the additional demand will have to be supplied by the industrial type of production.

For this to happen, two requirements must be met:

• Industrial systems and high potential cropping must be integrated in a wider land use concept where crop and livestock are specialized but maintain their bio-physical links. This would allow for environmentally beneficial interaction, while giving enterprises the opportunity to specialize and to fully exploit economies of scale. It entails a new type of regional planning that takes into account nutrient balances and input and product markets, infrastructure and services. Ultimately, such concepts will find application, not only at the regional or watershed level, but also at country and international scales. Livestock production will increasingly need to be relocated to the resource base and, with a combination of efficient infrastructure, appropriate incentives and enforced regulations, this will be the “animal agriculture” on the horizon.
• The striving for increasing efficiencies must continue in order to alleviate the resource requirements for livestock. Already, there could be a massive reduction of resource requirements, if appropriate technologies were applied, and if policies were conducive to higher efficiencies. New technologies, which promise continuous advances in efficiencies are on the horizon.

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