The use of citrus extract to mitigate the environmental footprint of pigs and broiler chicken production

Improving feed efficiency: a key strategy for reducing livestock’s

Environmental impact

Mitigating livestock’s environmental footprint is an important pillar for building sustainable animal production. This could be done by improving feed efficiency of livestock animals. More efficient feed conversion reduces the demand for feed crops, leading to lower land use, water consumption, and energy input for feed production. Additionally, it decreases the amount of manure and greenhouse gases emitted per unit of animal product, contributing to climate change mitigation and overall sustainability in animal farming.

Natural feed additives come up as an effective solution for improving feed efficiency and reducing animal production’s environmental footprint. Nor-Spice AB is a natural feed additive made from citrus extracts with prebiotic properties, allowing to modulate the gut microbiota of animals, and therefore improve feed efficiency.

Assessing the environmental impact of

Nor-Spice AB

Nor-Feed carried out a study to assess the environmental impacts of the use of its commercial citrus extract feed additive in swine and broiler chicken farming. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to assess the impact of manufacturing and distributing one 25 kg bag of Nor-Spice AB, and its use in broiler and swine productions.

The environmental impact of Nor-Spice AB’s

Manufacturing & distribution

Results showed that most of the impact of Nor-Spice AB’s manufacturing came from the production of ingredients, accounting for 70% of the impact generated. The remaining 30% effect was divided between transportation to the customer (25%), packaging (3%), and product manufacturing and production loss (2%). Moreover, the use of Nor-Spice AB in pigs and broiler production was shown to improve environmental indicators such as climate change, land occupation, and water consumption, compared to standard conditions without this feed additive.

The impact of Nor-Spice AB’s livestock supplementation on

Environmental indicators

Supplementing animals with Nor-Spice AB allowed to enhance growth performances, hence reducing the required amount of consumed feed to achieve the same level of growth. Consequently, this helped reduce environmental issues from animal feed ingredients’ agriculture. To be more specific, the use of one 25 kg bag of Nor-Spice AB led to a reduction of 6 tons of CO2 equivalent emitted along the life cycle of poultry production and 5 tons in the case of fattening pigs. This supplementation through the diet also led to a reduction in the land use footprint by 0.7 hectares and reductions in water consumption by 201 m3 and 82 m3 for broiler and swine production, respectively. The LCA thus showed the interest in using Nor-Spice AB in swine and broiler chicken diets to mitigate the environmental impacts.