Evaluation of the sustainability of contrasted pig farming systems: breeding programmes

Abstract

The sustainability of breeding activities in 15 pig farming systems in five European countries was evaluated. One conventional and two differentiated systems per country were studied. The Conventional systems were the standard systems in their countries. The differentiated systems were of three categories: Adapted Conventional with focus on animal welfare, meat quality or environment (five systems); Traditional with local breeds in small-scale production (three systems) and Organic (two systems). Data were collected with a questionnaire from nine breeding organisations providing animals and semen to the studied farming systems and from, on average, five farmers per farming system. The sustainability assessment of breeding activities was performed in four dimensions. The first dimension described whether the market for the product was well defined, and whether the breeding goal reflected the farming system and the farmers' demands. The second dimension described recording and selection procedures, together with genetic change in traits that were important in the system. The third dimension described genetic variation, both within and between pig breeds. The fourth dimension described the management of the breeding organisation, including communication, transparency, and technical and human resources. The results show substantial differences in the sustainability of breeding activities, both between farming systems within the same category and between different categories of farming systems. The breeding activities are assessed to be more sustainable for conventional systems than for differentiated systems in three of the four dimensions. In most differentiated farming systems, breeding goals are not related to the system, as these systems use the same genetic material as conventional systems. The breeds used in Traditional farming systems are important for genetic biodiversity, but the small scale of these systems renders them vulnerable. It is hoped that, by reflecting on different aspects of sustainability, this study will encourage sustainable developments in pig production.

Evaluating environmental impacts of contrasting pig farming systems with life cycle assessment

“…This inventory was used to select contrasting systems that were evaluated in more detail within the Q-PorkChains project for different sustainability themes including animal welfare, market conformity , meat safety, animal health, breeding programmes (Rydhmer et al, 2014), economics (Ilari-Antoine et al, 2014), working conditions and environment. This evaluation was performed using a toolbox developed from the literature (Edwards et al, 2008;Bonneau et al, 2014a) and was finalised into an overall sustainability evaluation (Bonneau et al, 2014b).…”

Evaluation of the sustainability of contrasted pig farming systems: integrated evaluation

“…Detailed descriptions of the primary indicators listed in Table 1 are available in the theme-wise companion papers (BP: Rydhmer et al, 2014;EN: Dourmad et al, 2014;MC: Gonzàlez et al, 2014;EC: Ilari-Antoine et al, 2014) or in supplementary material for AW, AH, MS and WC (Supplementary Material S1). To avoid indicator size effects, all data were centred to a mean of zero (by subtracting the overall average for the 15 systems) and scaled to a standard deviation of 1 (by dividing by the overall standard deviation for the 15 systems).…”

Review: Towards the agroecological management of ruminants, pigs and poultry through the development of sustainable breeding programmes. II. Breeding strategies

“…Admittedly, breeding programmes are not really guided by the agroecological principles as presented by Dumont et al (2014), even if some current efforts based on economic considerations may help to ensure the sustainability of the pig industry: the limitations on inputs are quantitative and do not specifically incorporate the use of local and variable resources that might be less well suited to the genetic potential of the animals; the preservation of biodiversity is restricted to the management of inbreeding in selected populations, particularly in the case of local breeds; waste reduction is seen as a simple, positive consequence of improved feed efficiency, and the diversification/coexistence of production modes is not envisaged at a large scale. Rydhmer et al (2014) evaluated the sustainability of population management programmes for various husbandry systems, ranging from the traditional to the conventional and including organic farming systems. In their study, the latter appeared not to breed animals that were fully adapted to their system; it was either possible to have a suitable system that included management of a local breed, or to drive a breeding programme in line with the organic system.…”