Sustainable livestock production: Low emission farm – The innovative combination of nutrient, emission and waste management with special emphasis on Chinese pig production

Abstract

Global livestock production is going to be more and more sophisticated in order to improve efficiency needed to supply the rising demand for animal protein of a growing, more urban and affluent population. To cope with the rising public importance of sustainability is a big challenge for all animal farmers and more industrialized operations especially. Confined animal farming operations (CAFO) are seen very critical by many consumers with regard to their sustainability performance, however, the need to improve the sustainability performance especially in the ecological and social dimension exists at both ends of the intensity, i.e., also for the small holder and family owned animal farming models. As in livestock operations, feed and manure contribute the majority to the three most critical environmental impact categories global warming potential (GWP), acidification (AP) and eutrophication potential (EP) any effort for improvement should start there. Intelligent combination of nutrient-, emission- and waste management in an integrated low emission farm (LEF) concept not only significantly reduces the environmental footprint in the ecological dimension of sustainability, but by producing renewable energy (heat, electricity, biomethane) with animal manure as major feedstock in an anaerobic digester also the economic dimension can be improved. Model calculations using new software show the ecological improvement potential of low protein diets using more supplemented amino acids for the Chinese pig production. The ecological impact of producing biogas or upgraded biomethane, of further treatment of the digestate and producing defined fertilizers is discussed. Finally, the LEF concept allows the integration of an insect protein plant module which offers additional ecological and economical sustainability improvement potential in the future. Active stakeholder communication about implementation steps of LEF examples improves also the social aspect of sustainability.

An integrated ecosystem incorporating renewable energy leading to pollution reduction for sustainable development of craft villages in rural area: a case study at sedge mats village in Mekong Delta, Vietnam

“…As indicated above, some "less waste" systems on the basis of these techniques have been developed by Kaufmann [8] and Mol [55]; however, these systems have been applied at larger area scales which are not suitable for the family scale at the sedge mats villages under this study.…”

“…An amount of 100 kg of those solid materials are composted for 30 days (supplemented by 1 kg Trichoderma) produced about 15 kg organic fertilizers and used for the household garden. In brief, the VICRAIZES system helped to manage completely all the solid wastes generated in the family, while the system suggested by Kaufmann [8] has applied at the larger area scope and led to less waste emission from livestock farms only.…”

“…This system has found an application in various developed countries such as in the USA [2][3][4][5] and in France [6,7]. Kaufmann developed a low carbon emission system applied for livestock farm in which the livestock waste and food garbage were used for biogas digestion, the methane gas was then collected and use for cooking at the household kitchen and/or filtered and stored for supplying outside, and the residue and wastewater after biogas digester were used as fertilizer [8].…”

“…All wastewater sources are entirely collected and led into wastewater treatment system, the analytical results of wastewater quality after treatment system as follows: [8] and Sulca [4], both suggested that the wastewaters and solid wastes from livestock farms are directly applied for plant cultivation, while these waste flows (after bio-digester) are commonly discharged into environment in Vietnam Thu [52]), and these flows do not certainly meet the local standards as required in QCVN 40:2011/ BTNMT for both wastewaters from livestock and sedge mats production. Thus, at the low income condition of the family in the craft villages, the investment of standard waste treatment system for meeting with required regulations are practically not applicable; therefore, the VICRAIZES demonstration system under this study is proved to be a good choice for wastewater treatment at the craft villages.…”

Research System [IKRS] for Treatment of Bloat and its Significance towards Greenhouse Gas Emission: Jharkhand, India

“…The public concern in overcoming global warming potential of animal farming operations through feed have to be taken cared (Kaufmann, 2015). The major components of gas produced in rumen are CO 2 (45-70%) and CH 4 (20 to 30%) (Clarke and Rein, 1972).…”