Tuesday, January 28, 2020

The true cost of livestock production

A new publication from Evonik and KPMG examines the impacts of poultry and swine production and outlines the potential societal benefits of using feed additives which reduce protein intake.

Current livestock farming practices contribute to serious global challenges, including climate change, land degradation, and pollution. Therefore, more sustainable methods are urgently required to meet the increasing demand for meat, fish, milk and eggs.


 
Image credit: Evonik
To build the case for using innovative animal feed practices on a large scale, Evonik partnered with finance and sustainability professionals at KPMG member firms to measure and evaluate the impacts of livestock production.

Societal impacts
The analysis, using the KPMG True Value methodology, compared the societal impacts of using innovative animal feed versus conventional feed. It covered the economic, environmental and social impacts of meat production across the value chain, from the cultivation of crops for animal feed through to animal husbandry.

The analysis was based on 2018 market shares of innovative feed in chicken production in Brazil and pork production in China, and on the most advanced innovative feed composition available at the time. The team quantified the impacts in financial terms using valuation data selected from a wide variety of sources.

The Evonik/KPMG True Value approach assigns a financial value for each impact. Once this was established for each impact, the total value of impacts could be calculated for production using innovative animal feed and conventional feed. The two calculations revealed significant differences between the two types of feed in terms of their social and environmental impacts.

The analysis valued the environmental and social impacts of poultry production in Brazil at €1,345 per ton of live weight (t/lw) when conventional animal feed is used. The most significant impacts are land use to produce crops for animal feed and air pollution from the chickens' waste.

Read more, HERE.


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