Global assessment of land and water resource demand for pork supply

Bibliographic Data

ID15549173
AuthorsCamilla Govoni (0000-0002-1663-4193, Politecnico di Milano, corresponding author), Davide Danilo Chiarelli (0000-0002-4707-3018, Politecnico di Milano), Alice Luciano (0000-0003-0600-9498, University of Milan), L Pinotti (0000-0003-0337-9426, University of Milan), Maria Cristina Rulli (0000-0002-9694-4262, Politecnico di Milano)
Year2022
Volume17
Issue7
Pages074003-074003
Publication date2022-05-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/ac74d7
OpenAlexW4281735165
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited58

Growing population and rising incomes are leading to an ever-increasing demand for animal-based foods. Pigmeat is currently the most consumed meat globally, even exceeding the consumption of poultry meat. Despite the disproportionate environmental burden of animal production—mostly attributable to associated feed demand, up-to-date country-scale quantifications of the land and water impacts of the concentrate feed (mainly cereals and soybean) and co-products required to support pig production are still missing. In addition, the specific role that international feed trade plays in separating resource use from consumption and in altering resource use efficiencies remains unclear. This paper analyses at a country-scale the internal and external consumption of natural resources (i.e. land and water) to support pig feed production in 2018. Combining data on the country- and production system-specific diets and crop-specific yields with an agro-hydrological model, we find that 64.1 Mha of agricultural land (5% of all croplands) and 332.6 km 3 of water (both green and blue) (6% of all agricultural water use) were utilized by China, EU-27 and the United States (accounting for 70% of pigmeat production) to produce pig feed alone. Comparing domestic feed production scenarios with those that also consider the feed trade, we show that global resource consumption tends to be more efficient when considering international feed trade, especially in China and EU-27, while sometimes causing significant environmental impacts. This demonstrates the need to investigate the environmental effects of pig feed associated both with the domestic use of natural resources, but also to the ones displaced by international trade

Agricultural economics · Agricultural land · Agricultural science · Agriculture · Agronomy · Animal Feed · Biology · Business · China · Consumption (sociology · Economics · Geography · Natural resource · Natural resource economics · Production (economics · Resource (disambiguation · Water use · Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact · Environmental Impact and Sustainability · Environmental Science · Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability · Biotechnology · Ecology

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