Tipo de Seguridad

T. Sághy

1143 Budapest Ilka u. 8. Hungary

Introduction

Modern animal farming is an industry. Up to 10,000 pigs or 200,000 broilers are often kept crowded in an animal house. Inputs, such as feed, energy and water are high. Outputs, such as animal products, manure, carcasses, pollutants (gases, smell, dust, infections) all can cause danger to the health and to the environment. The question is whether we do really need so much animal products at all. Almost 50% of global grains are fed to livestock. This grain was formerly eaten directly by humans. Population growth, and scarcity of agricultural areas need maximum efficiency without conversion loss (Goodland, 1997).

This short review aims at demonstrating the potential adverse effects of modern livestock production to the environment and looking at some indicators of these adverse effects. The aim is also to mitigate the listed adverse effects, to find inexpensive, measurable, efficient indicators for them and to maintain natural and social system capacity for regeneration (functional integrity) (Thompson and Nardone, 1999).

Discussion

To meet the human requirement for food, farm animals have undergone drastic changes in the systems of production. In general, the objective of many animal production systems is to decrease the cost of production by maintaining high standards in productivity. Many farming systems are a compromise, and there is much we do not know or understand, but farmers say that healthy, well-managed animals perform better.

Concerns over declining farm animal welfare were mentioned by McInerney (1991) in relation to modern systems of production:

Figure 1: The hypothetical relationship between animal productivity and welfare.

0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120% 140% 160% Animal productivity A n imal w e lfare _A B _C D E

A= Natural state without human intervention at 0% productivity

B= Maximum welfare supported by human care (feeding, temperature, etc.) at 100% productivity C= Economic efficiency and animal welfare are balanced in an optimum way at about 120%, D= By the law enforced minimum animal welfare at about 130%,

Enhancing animal health security and food safety in organic livestock production

From environmental management point of view sustainability is so arbitrary that this review can only point to environmental impacts and to their indicators:

Table 1: Input, output, and measurable indicators (5, 8,11) Resource use (inputs): Indicators:

Land for feed production: about 5 tons grain/ha pig: 4 kg grain/bwkg cattle: 7 kg grain/bwkg Feed Conversion Ratio:

(but: human utilization of their proteins is more efficient)

poultry: 2 kg grain/bwkg Land for manure deposition: max. 170 kg N/ha

max. 2,3 cattle/ha max. 51 fattening pigs/ha Livestock Unit (LSU):

max. 255 hens/ha

Water: 10000 L/kg beef

Energy: See Figure 4

Resource use (outputs):

Manure quantity: 10 million m3_{/year in Hun.}

content: N, P, K, infectiousness factors: - soil texture, water capacity - ground water distance

- surface water distance

- plant type absorption capacity Carcasses 40,000 tons/year in Hun. Food-processing by-products 210,000 tons/year in Hun. GHGs: methan by ruminants 2,5% contribution of GHG Smell: NH3, H2S, etc. distance

Food-products residuals, infectiousness

Four diagrams are shown (Figure 2,3,4,5), depicting square meters of arable land per kg produced meat, nitrate leaching per ha fodder area, production costs per kg meat, and simulated energy use, respectively, compared cattle and pigs, organic and conventional farming. These results arise from certain type of local conditions and research, and they can change in other circumstances (the rate of external and internal costs, land abundance or scarcity, soil structure and the vegetation on it, etc.):

Figure 2: Square-meters of arable land per kilo produced meat under Swedish conditions (after K.-I. Kumm)

0 5 10 15 20

Conventional beef Organic beef Conventional pork Organic pork

m 2 / m eat _Grain Ley

Figure 3: Nitrate leaching per ha fodder area. It was calculated on clay soil under Swedish conditions (after K.-I. Kumm)

0 10 20 30

Conventional beef Organic beef Conventional pork Organic pork

kg N / h a f e e d a rea

Figure 4: Simulated energy use (EU) for ruminants and non-ruminants in the 1996 situation (conventional farming) compared to organic farming (after T. Dalgaard)

0 10 20 30 40

Conventional beef Organic beef Conventional pork Organic pork

E U ( G J / L S U ) EU (GJ/LSU)

Enhancing animal health security and food safety in organic livestock production Figure 5: Production costs per kilo meat. It was calculated under Swedish condition (after K.-I. Kumm) 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3

Conventional beef Organic beef Conventional pork Organic pork

Eu

ro

Sustainability can not be analyzed only inside animal houses, environmental impacts mainly depend on their outside effects. Resource use and resource availability (energy, water, land usage for feed, for manure, machines, chemicals) must be balanced with each other and with the values of the animal products (Cobb et al., 1999).

Output pollutants like manure, carcasses, food-processing by-products can be all dangerous infectious materials which could be also used as e.g. resources for fertilization of soils, but because of their great amount, of their concentrated and possible infectious nature, this recycling seldom works.

The great resource use and the consequent environmental pollutions are mainly external costs and are not involved into the distorted cheap price of animal products.

Conclusion

Criteria for sustainable livestock production will be derived from explicit but complex issues of un-sustainability, such as land scarcity, soil degradation (e.g. over-grazing), inefficient use of resources (water, energy, nutrients), environmental pollution (air, water, soil), declining biodiversity (clearing of forests), food born diseases.

Although, we can get a lot of information about the present state of a system, time and space considerations remain uncertain.

Real sustainability of a system contains the capacity for reproduction, as an important function of it, too. Cycles of animal productions are more rapid than the cycles with which the natural resources needed for productions are renewed (soil, water, oil).

There is not one overall truth, place-conditioned and time-influenced considerations must also be used for decisions.

Recommendations

Monitor environmental parameters and processes of animal production

Soil, water and fossil fuel are non-renewable resources in a short period of time. Using inexpensive, small, efficient sensors, environmental impacts will be captured in prices (fertilizer, fuel, pesticides, etc.), and market distortions will tend to diminish

More useable food per unit of land would results in possibility for land abandonment (for conversion to more valuable forests, wetlands, etc.)

Maintaining natural and social system capacity for regeneration (functional integrity) Match the type of farming to local conditions, climate, and soil, rather than modifying the environment to the animal farming

Enhancing animal health security and food safety in organic livestock production [LEFT BLANK]

Bioterra, the association of oraganic producers, promoter of