Use of Byproducts Lower Feed Costs and Reduce Carbon Footprint

Research conducted by the Prairie Swine Centre shows pork producers can reduce their cost of production and their carbon footprint by increasing their inclusion of byproducts in the diet. "Diets for Growing Pigs: Can we reduce feed costs and the carbon footprint?" will be discussed as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2021 set for November 16-17 in Saskatoon.

Dr. Denise Beaulieu, an Assistant Professor with the University of Saskatchewan and an Adjunct Research Scientist Nutrition with the Prairie Swine Center, explains researchers looked at methods for reducing the carbon footprint by modifying the diet.

Clip-Dr. Denise Beaulieu-University of Saskatchewan:

We have found that using for example high fibre byproducts such as wheat byproducts we were not able to measure an increase in enteric greenhouse gasses from these pigs. Therefore, because the wheat has been grown for flour, the carbon attributed to growing that wheat, so all the carbon inputs, can be divided into the carbon inputs for flour production and the carbon inputs for byproducts.

That means, instead of all of the carbon inputs for the wheat, we only get a portion of those carbon inputs because we're only using the byproduct. Because there is no difference in enteric production, we showed that the grain production, growing that grain for the diets, we can do that with about a 25 percent less carbon footprint because we're using byproducts and not the entire grain.

Hopefully in the future, perhaps producers can get carbon credits for producing pigs with a lower carbon footprint. Currently these byproducts also allow producers, in most cases, to formulate diets that are lower cost so it's kind of a win win.