Carcass Quality in Certified Organic Production Compared with Conventional Livestock Production

Abstract

By studying carcass quality, expressed as affection, pathological findings, slaughter-weight and evaluation, a picture of an animal's health and potential as high quality food is achieved. This study compares the carcass quality in Swedish certified organic meat production with that of conventional meat production slaughtered during 1997. The study involves 3.9 million pigs, about 570,000 cattle and 190,000 sheep, all reared conventionally and 3483 pigs 4949 cattle and 4997 sheep reared according to organic standards. Pathological and additional findings are registered by meat inspectors from the Swedish National Food Administration at the post-mortem inspection. There was a significant difference at the post-mortem inspection of growing-fattening pigs; 28% of conventionally and 17% of the organically reared pigs had one or more registered lesion. The carcass evaluation of swine shows a higher meat percentage in conventional swine production. The total rate of registered abnormalities in cattle was systems around 28% from organic and 27% from conventionally reared herds. Carcass evaluation of cattle from organic herds gave higher classification in the EUROP system, whereas the fat content was lower than that of conventionally reared cattle. Sheep, reared both organically and conventionally, showed a lower rate of registered abnormalities than swine and cattle.

Genotype–environment interactions for growth and carcass traits in different pig breeds kept under conventional and organic production systems

“…All other genotypes show a decrease in meat percentage close to 1% except the Du 3 DL animals with 2.6% lower meat percentage under organic conditions. In another study, 0.6% less lean meat was observed under organic conditions (Hansson et al, 2000). Assuming that in the latter study not all pigs were fed ad libitum to the final weight, the higher decrease in this study under ad libitum feeding till the end was expected.…”

Nutritional quality and safety of organic food. A review

“…It is acknowledged that meat from cows and sheep contains less fat when animals are fed with grass rather than concentrate. In that line, a study conducted in Sweden showed that organically-bred cows have more lean meat than their conventional counterparts (Hansson et al, 2000). This was not found in pigs (Sundrum et al, 2000).…”

“…For lipids, few studies have compared the total lipid content of beef, pork or chicken meat (Pastsshenko et al, 2000;Hansson et al, 2000;Hönikel, 1998;Fischer, 2001;Castellini et al, 2002). It is acknowledged that meat from cows and sheep contains less fat when animals are fed with grass rather than concentrate.…”

Behaviour, heart rate, and heart rate variability in pigs exposed to novelty

“…In an intensive as well as in an outdoor pig production unit, several animal welfare problems such as tail-biting and belly nosing have been recognised (Hansson et al, 2000;Walker and Bilkei, 2006), which points out that at least some animals cannot cope with the environment. To the awareness of the authors, there is a lack of data concerning the measurement of the relationship between behavioural and physiological characteristics under fearinduced situations in pigs.…”