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Sammenligning af miljøpåvirkningen af konkurrerende jordbrugsprodukter

Bilag C

Pig production in Spain

Llorenç Milà i Canals & Pere Fullana Palmer

C.1 Executive Summary

Pig production in Spain has been assessed through extensive expert interviews and review of existing official statistics. The sector is not very cohesive in terms of production systems, and different tendencies coexist in Spain. Apart from free-range production of pigs, typical from Southern and Western Spain (which is not assessed in this study), very differentiated intensive production systems have been identified. Of these, the biggest farms operating either in “independent, closed-cycle” systems (system 1) or in multi-phases production systems (system 2), seem to be the most competitive ones, and those where marginal increases in Spanish pig production will most likely take place. The former usually operate as producers' cooperatives, while multi-phase production is more usually the result of leasing contracts. This study reports values that can be considered as the marginal technology in Spain, except where specified in the text. Differences in production efficiencies and feedstuff composition have been identified in these two production systems. Waste is almost always collected as liquid slurry and stored for 3-4 months before land spreading. The only product considered in these systems is 100 kg live-weight pigs, and a reference flow of 1 ton of live-weight (10 pigs) is used for expressing the results.

In terms of significant environmental indicators, system 1 represents single site farm of ca. 400 sows and 3,600 fattening places in size. In this system there is a consumption of 209.1 kg gestation fodder, 132 kg lactation fodder, 204 kg transition fodder, and 2,282.6 kg fattening fodder per ton of pig live-weight produced. Also 9,874.2 litres of water, 88.2 kWh electricity, and 546.7 MJ diesel is consumed per ton of live-weight. An additional waste source is the dead animals, of which ca. 46 kg are produced per ton of pig live-weight (including reposition sows).

System 2, with a multi-site structure including a piglet production farm of ca. 1,500 sows and 13 farms with around 1,000 fattening places in size, is slightly less efficient than System 1, in spite of the identical food conversion rates considered. The main reason is that smaller farms in System 1 result in less sanitary problems, and finally there are less weaned pigs and there is a higher mortality in the transition and fattening stages in System 2. In this system there is a consumption of 220.6 kg gestation fodder, 139.2 kg lactation fodder, 204.8 kg transition fodder, and 2,296.1 kg fattening fodder per ton of pig liveweight produced. Also 10,049.5 litres of water, 92.1 kWh electricity, and 557.4 MJ diesel are consumed. Ca. 51 kg of dead animals (including reposition sows) are produced per ton of pig liveweight.

C.2. Acknowledgements

Many experts have provided their time and efforts to the study. We sincerely thank Dr. Joan Tibau (IRTA-Monells); Mr. Arturo Fernández (MAPA, Head of the Livestock production Service); Ms. Raquel Quintanilla (IRTA-Lleida, Manager of Bdporc); Mr. Miquel Collell (B&M Consulting); and Mr. Pep Font (SIP Consultants SCP) for their help in defining and quantifying the production systems; Mr. Guillem Burset (Exporc, CEO) for his references to pig exportations in Spain; Dr. Xavier Flotats (IRTA and University of Lleida, UdL) and Mr. Jaume Boixadera (DARP and UdL) for their support in defining the waste management systems and emissions calculation; and Ms. Maria Ligutti (Brilliant Alternatives, Inc.), for the definition of feedstuff composition.

C.3 Abbreviations

CSP: Classical Swine Pest
DARP: Catalan Ministry of Agriculture (Departament d'Agricultura, Ramaderia i Pesca)
IRTA: Catalan Institute for Agro-food Research and Technology (Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries)
MAPA: Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

C.4. Background

Traditional pig production in Spain consists of extensive systems: the Iberic Pig of the “dehesas” in Central and Southern Spain (Extremadura, Andalusia and Castilla). This type of production, with less than 2 million pigs censed in 2002 ^[2], is focused on high-quality products, with a clearly differentiated market and production systems, and will not be a topic of research in the present project.

Intensive (industrial) pig production begins in Spain in the 1960s, and has known a continuous growth since then. However this development has not been guided towards a specific type of production, and different production structures coexist, often differentiated according to the regions. This report considers “typical” intensive pig production systems in Spain.

In intensive production the typical product is a pig of ca. 100 kg live weight (around 6 months of age), although an important part of the production is directed towards bigger animals (ca. 130-140 kg live weight). This latter type of pigs is mainly focused to the interior market, where meat with higher amounts of “infiltrated” fat is highly valued (for cured hams). However, as bigger animals are not oriented towards exportation, their production will not be considered in this report.

With a census of around 23.5 million animals (of which 2.6 million sows in December 2002) and ca. 36 million animals slaughtered annually ^[3], Spain is the second pig producer in Europe with ca. 19% of the pigs, after Germany. The country has lived a quick evolution of pig production structure in the last years, mainly forced by sanitary (burst of Classical Swine Pest, CSP) and economic (price fluctuations) reasons.

Due to the spreading of CSP in 1997, basically caused by the import of piglets from the Netherlands, the amount of sows and closed cycle farms has increased in Spain in the last years in order to reduce sanitary risks and assure the provision of piglets.

In the last years, small pig farms have had to stop their activity in favour of bigger farms. Mainly in order to cope with fluctuations in price, vertical integration leasing structures (known as “integration contracts”) have flourished in Spain, where feedstuff producers usually control pig fattening, and in the last years also piglets production. The sector has evolved towards 3 different production structures:

• Private integrators (ca. 35% of Spanish production in 1999): usually initiatives of feed producers, resulting in fattening farms operated in integrated contracts (the farmer “hires” the place, while the investor puts the piglets and the feed, and buys the fattened pig). Due to CSP these are being equipped with huge reproduction farms (of over 200 sows, up to 10,000 sows) ^[4] aimed at providing piglets to the fattening farms. One single integrator, Vall Companys, produces 10% of Spanish pigs, and has become the biggest integrator in Europe; they produce feedstuff, piglets and sperm, and buy the fattened pigs to the farms.
• Big cooperatives (ca. 35% of production, 1999): these offer price stability and support to big numbers of producers usually operating in closed-cycle systems within pig production areas. The tendency is that these type of farms grow to relatively big proportions, while keeping the closed-cycle perspective ^[5] or progressively dividing the production into phases like the big private integrators.
• Independent producers (ca. 30% of production, 1999). These are usually small farms that sell the pigs directly to local slaughterhouses. They operate in closed-cycle systems, and due to their inability to cope with big price fluctuations it is expected that will progressively disappear. It must be noted that they represent a very big number of small farms (in 2001, 32% of the farms in Spain had less than 10 animals, and 71% have between 10-199, although these farms represent 0.4% and 7.2% of the animals respectively ^[6]).

Even though more recent data for the distribution between the above-mentioned three types of exploitations are not available, the tendency is that the bigger structures (private integrators and cooperatives) grow at the expense of small independent producers. Thus, in 2004 total production of independent producers has probably decreased while increasing in big cooperatives and private integrators.

Intensive pig production in Spain is concentrated in a few regions, with Catalonia concentrating around 6 million pigs, Aragon with near 4 millions, Castilla Leon with over 3 millions, and Andalusia, Murcia and Castilla la Mancha with over 2 millions each by the end of 2002 ^[7].

C.5. Difficulties in data collection

As opposite to other countries, where the structures of production may be more or less homogenised through the country, Spain shows a wide variation of farm types, with no common strategies for pig production. This makes it almost impossible to define “typical” farms for pig production.

Besides, even though agricultural statistics in Spain are well-established for certain crops, the farm accountancy data network is not oriented at defining production systems, but merely at identifying the existing numbers of animals and crop surfaces. In the case of intensive pig production, there is no official information on farm structure (size of farms, type of feed and waste management, etc.). This is due to the fact that only those farms having agricultural land have an incentive to fill in the questionnaires for the agrarian census (collected by the National Institute for Statistics, INE); as most intensive pig farms have no land, they are not represented in the agrarian census. On the other hand, this census shows a big number of pig farms with very few heads (4-10), corresponding to those farms that apart from another main activity have a few pigs mostly for family consumption.

The only official statistics on pig production refer to the total number of heads (per province), and are collected three times per year by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA). This information source can only provide a picture of where the pigs are produced and how many are slaughtered each year, but nothing about the structure of the farms where these pigs come from, or the amount of meat produced... ^[8]. Apart from the total number of heads, MAPA also groups the number of farms existing per each size group, but this is reported for EUROSTAT for the whole country, and consequently it cannot be related to the type of farm (closed-cycle, only fattening, only pig production, etc.).

The MAPA is currently preparing an exhaustive registry of pig farms (SIMOPOR), aimed at providing traceability data (pig mobility) in order to guide the administration's role in case of sanitary crises. This program will be of internal use only for the MAPA, and will contain information on the exact locations where pigs are produced at each moment, size of farms, origin of feedstuffs, etc. However this registry will not be publicly available during this year.

Finally, the Catalan Institute for Agro-food Technology and Research (IRTA) is managing a joint project with MAPA and the main Spanish association of pig producers (ANPROGAPOR) a database for productivity in farms with sows (called Bdporc). This database is oriented at providing reference data for the pig sector in Spain, but currently is not very representative (around 10% of the sows are registered). It will be used for data on productivity (piglets per sow, mortality, etc.) in different Spanish regions. Similar databases are developed and maintained by private consultants, who provide economic and technical advice to many farmers. One of such databases provides publicly available reference data for food conversion (kg feedstuff/kg live weight gain) in the different life stages (piglet production, transition, and fattening), representing over 130,000 sows of the most efficient farms in the country. These data will be used as representative for the “marginal” farms, where most probably a new pig would be produced if the demand increased ^[9]. The database from SIP Consultants will be used to define feed uptake efficiency, piglets productivity and mortality in the different life stages, and will contrasted with the “official” data from BdPorc (which provides regional variations from a mix of highly-efficient and “not-so-efficient” farms).

C.6. Description of the typical pig production units

Pig production systems are described in terms of the following items:

• Pig farms: size, management and production units within the farm; performance indicators are also described in this section.
• Feedstuff production: main ingredients, production location and marginal ingredients.
• Waste management: slurry collection and storage systems representative of Spain; transport of slurry and field application are also described here, as well as the emissions from waste management.

C.6.1. Pig production farms

Taking into account the huge variability between farm types that exists in Spain, and the difficulty in defining a “typical” farm, the following two systems are defined for pig production in Spain:

• System 1: “Closed-cycle” farm. A rough estimation ^[10] of 70-80% of Spanish sows is still in this type of farms, which combine piglet production and fattening. The tendency is that a part of this type of farms will either disappear (the smallest ones) or become part of a contracting system, specialising either on piglets production or fattening. A farm within this system consists on average on 400 sows (typically from 100 to 600, but with a huge variation from 1 sow to 10,000), and thus produces around 4,000 piglets per year (ca. 1,800 animals are present in the farm at any moment). Waste is collected in liquid form (slurry), and the farm has no land destined to crop production or spreading slurry; consequently all the slurry must be transported to other (agricultural) farms, either with or pre-treatment (e.g.: drying, anaerobic digestion, etc.). The few farms collecting waste as manure would be included within this group, but these are very small and not representative of the situation in Spain. 66% of pigs in Spain are within a farm of above 1,000 animals, which gives a first idea of the representativity of this type of farm.
• System 2: “Open-cycle” production. In this type of systems, a variety of sub-systems may be included, where piglet production is separated from fattening. 20-30% of sows belong to these systems in Spain, which typically consist of a big piglet production farm (average of 1,500 sows, typically varying from 500 to 3,000), associated to smaller fattening farms under contracts. Waste is collected in liquid form (slurry), and the farm has no land destined to crop production or spreading slurry. 66% of pigs in Spain are within a farm of above 1,000 animals, which gives a first idea of the representativity of this type of farm.

Technical descriptions of both systems are provided below. The main difference between the studied systems lies in the mortality rates in all the stages. In system 1 these rates are lower due to the smaller size of the farm, and thus more pigs are weaned per sow per year, and fewer pigs die in the transition and fattening stages in System 1 ^[11]. This is in turn reflected in lower sanitary costs in System 1 (not shown in the Table). Also the economic structural costs of the farm are slightly higher in System 2, but this is not studied here.

Table C.1. Average technical parameters for the description of pig production systems.

C.6.2. Feedstuff production

All intensive pig producers in Spain use concentrate feeds, which include a big part of imported cereals (mainly soy beans from USA, Brazil and Argentina). Threshold values for the composition of basic feedstuffs may be obtained from FEDNA, the Spanish Association for de Development of Animal Nutrition ^[12], which are representative of small producers who do not have the required expertise to continuously optimise their feeds. However, all big producers tend to formulate their own feedstuffs themselves, and an expert in feedstuff production has been contacted to develop what can be considered as a representative formulation of pig feedstuffs in Spain ^[13].

Table C.2. Typical feedstuff composition considered for the different phases of pig production in the study.

The main ingredients are shadowed in table C.2, with the remaining ingredients being by-products that vary in the composition depending on availability and price. The formulations for smaller cooperatives tend to be slightly more fixed due to the storage limitations (they cannot store 20 different ingredients, and so use less by-products even if this results in more expensive feedstuff).

Cereals are always the carbohydrate basis, with the importance in Spain with the relative importance decreasing from barley to corn and wheat. They are usually complemented with wheat by-products depending on the availability in order to reduce the price. Cereals are mostly produced in Spain.

The typical protein source is soy meal from imported (USA, Brazil, Argentina and Canada) soy beans. However, spring peas is a competitive national ingredient that allows a reduction in price and therefore is used whenever available. When available nationally, peas may represent up to 22% of some compositions (mainly for sows), but to reflect seasonality only 8-10% is expressed in Table B2.

Gluten feed (with different % in protein) is usually used to complement soy meal, except in smaller cooperatives with a limited storage capacity. Also for cultural reasons, smaller farms tend to use more soy meal than necessary even if this rises the costs.

As fat sources, rice by-products rich in fats are available locally in Catalonia, Aragon and the Southern half of Spain (i.e.: not in Castilla Leon). Complementing this, lard is typically used as well.

C.6.3. Waste management

As noted above, all farms are assumed to collect waste as liquid slurry. Spanish law on regulation of pig farms (RD 324/2000 de ordenación de las explotaciones porcinas) requires a minimum storage capacity of 3 months, while many Autonomous Communities (regions) raise this minimum value to 4 months ^[14]. For the present study, a storage capacity of 4 months will be considered. Some farms have built underground pits to store the slurry beneath the stables, but the tendency is to build smaller underground pits and increase the capacity of exterior tanks, in order to facilitate disposal ^[15]. Table C.3 presents figures for slurry collection systems that may be considered for Spain. Of these, the IPCC values are not representative because they include the practice of solid storage, which is not common in Spain. The “official” values have been used by MAPA in order to calculate emission factors, but they are actually not representative (there is no such thing as “daily application” in intensive pig farms, because the law requires a minimum storage of 3 months...).

Table C.3: Slurry management systems in Spain (Representation of Spanish pig heads, %). a: Penman et al., 2000. b: Dr. Xavier Flotats, personal communications. May 2004.

It must be noted that underground pits are periodically emptied into external tanks. The emission factors that should be considered for the three types of waste collection (external storage, pit storage < 1 month and > 1 month) would eventually be the same, and therefore an overall category of “liquid slurry” can be considered, representing 89% of Spanish farms. As for the fraction of pigs under pasture, it will not be considered in the present study because this represents extensive pig production in Southern and Western Spain. Finally, the proportion of farms collecting waste as solids (including straw or other types of bedding) are not relevant in Spain, and are only used in small farms. Consequently, and for emissions estimation, 100% liquid slurry collection will be considered in this study.

Even though some regions have provided treatment plants mainly with the aim of facilitating slurry transportation (drying, anaerobic digestion...), this is not common practice in Spain. No treatment is thus considered before spreading the slurry on the fields, apart from the storage in tanks for at least 4 months (see above). However, 17 plants will be in operation in 2004 in Spain concentrated in the most saturated regions (especially Catalonia and Castilla León), treating ca. 1.7 Mtons of slurry per year ^[16]. In the near future new production farms in saturated areas might have to treat their waste in this type of plants. This has not been studied in this project due to its current small relevance, but should possibly be included in future extensions of the project.

Most pig slurry produced in Spain is applied to agricultural fields after 3-4 months storage. The transportation is done in “tanker” trucks, and it generally involves short distances (less than 10 km). The distance is a function of the place of production, and it may be up to 30 km or more in specific areas. Particularly, the distance grows in areas with dense concentrated production, or areas where agricultural fields are sparse (e.g.: Catalonia). Castilla and Aragon are areas with lower production densities and bigger cropfields, which allow shorter transport distances.

Soil types in Spain may be broadly classified in two main groups according to their pH:

• § calcareous soils (with pH > 8), in the Eastern half of Spain, where most of the pigs are produced (Catalonia, Aragon, Murcia and Andalusia),
• § and non-calcareous soils (pH neutral or slightly acid), mainly in half of the two Castillas.

Soil pH will affect waste-derived emissions together with soil humidity, which will basically be determined by rainfall and irrigation.

Above 90% of the pig slurry is applied using broadcast spreaders, defined as the reference technology in the BREF document for intensive pig farming (IPTS 2002), and is related to the emission factors discussed below.

C.6.4. Emissions from slurry

MAPA provides reference values for the EPER Registry ^[17] to calculate emissions from waste. Emissions of methane, nitrous oxide, and ammonia can be estimated using such values. In the case of NH₃, no consideration of waste management and temperature is done in the emission factors, and they will be used as provided by MAPA (see table 4).

It must be noted that N content in pig slurry depends on the N intake through the diet, which has been reduced in the last years in order to optimise production efficiency and reduce environmental emissions. The optimisation of feed intake according to the production phase (as it has been explained in Table C.2) and the addition of certain amino-acids with the aim of increasing N uptake by pigs allows to reduce the N content of slurry by 12% ^[18], and this should be taken into account when estimating the emissions.

Click here to see Table C.4

As in the case of NH₃, no consideration of waste management and temperature is done in the emission factors for N₂O (see table C.5).

Table C.5: Nitrous oxide emissions from pig slurry management in Spain. * Source: http://www.mapya.es/es/ganaderia/pags/Emisiones_gases/emisiones.htm [on-line: 03.06.2004]

As opposite to N₂O and NH₃, methane emissions from slurry depend on temperature and management system (see table 4.10 in IPCC 2000). These parameters are included in the calculations through the regional factors calculated for each Spanish region taking temperature and a mix of waste management systems into account (factor E in Table C.6). However, the regional methane conversion factors provided by MAPA contemplate a mix of waste management systems not representative of the Spanish situation, and assume that 47% of pig slurry is spread daily in Spain (see Table C.3). With the guidance of Dr Xavier Flotats, who has been assessing the Ministry for the Environment on the issues of animal waste emissions, new factors have been calculated for the main Spanish pig-producing regions (see table 7). These new factors have been calculated assuming 100% of liquid slurry collection and the average annual temperatures in these regions.

Click here to see Table C.6

Table C.7. Regional methane conversion factors for the main Spanish pig-producing regions.

Finally, methane emissions from enteric fermentation must be added to the emissions from slurry. In this case, a fixed rate per animal class is used by MAPA (see Table C.8).

Table C.8: Methane emissions from enteric fermentation in pigs in Spain. * Source: http://www.mapya.es/es/ganaderia/pags/Emisiones_gases/emisiones.htm [on-line: 03.06.2004]

Copper and Zinc are common additives in pig feedstuff that generate serious emissions when slurry is applied to fields. These emissions may be estimated from the amounts present in the feedstuffs, and compared to measures of typical slurry compositions (see Table C.9).

Table C.9: Pig slurry composition from studies in Spanish samples. DM: Dry Matter; OM: Organic Matter; N-Tot: Total N.

C.7 Life cycle inventory of pig production systems in Spain

The following sections offer the quantitative information for the materials and energy balances in the studied pig production systems.

Table C.10. Inputs and outputs for typical Spanish pig production.

References

• J Penman, D Kruger, I Galbally, T Hiraishi, B Nyenzi, S Emmanul, L Buendia, R Hoppaus, T Martinsen, J Meijer, K Miwa and K Tanabe (Eds). 2000. Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme. ISBN 4-88788-000-6
• IPTS. 2002. Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). Reference Document on Best Available Techniques for Intensive Rearing of Poultry and Pigs. Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS, JRC), Seville (Spain), November 2002.
• LAF (Laboratori d'Anàlisi i Fertilitat de Sòls). 1999. Avaluació i aprofitament dels residus organics d'origen ramader en agricultura. Quaderns de Divulgació, núm. 5. Diputació de Lleida.
• MAPA (Spanish Ministry of Fisheries and Food). 2003. El sector de la carne de cerdo en cifras. Principales indicadores económicos en 2002. Subdirección General porcino, avicultura y otras producciones ganaderas. Madrid, June 2003.
• Navés J., Torres M.C. 1999. Composició físico-química i valor fertilitzant del purí de porc procedent d'explotacions porcines de la comarca del Pla d'Urgell In: “Dossiers Agraris ICEA. Problemes moderns de l'ús dels sòls: nitrats” (in Catalan).

Fodnoter

[2] MAPA (Spanish Ministry of Fisheries and Food). 2003. Encuesta Ganadera 2002. MAPA, Madrid (Spain).

[3] COAG. 2002. La PAC en las Producciones Ganaderas. COAG (Coordinadora de Asociaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos), Madrid (Spain).

[4] Spain is today the country with more farms of over 200 sows in the EU.

[5] “Closed-cycle” perspective refers here to the way pigs are produced: a closed-cycle pig farm produces the piglets and fattens them, while an “open-cycle” system produces piglets in one farm and fattens them in another one. Nutrient cycles are not considered when giving such names to farm systems.

[6] MAPA, S.G. de Estadísticas Agroalimentarias. 2001. Evolución de los efectivos de ganado porcino en España según el tamaño de las explotaciones.

[7] MAPA (Spanish Ministry of Fisheries and Food). 2003. El sector de la carne de cerdo en cifras. Principales indicadores económicos en 2002. Subdirección General porcino, avicultura y otras producciones ganaderas. Madrid, June 2003.

[8] Mr. Arturo Fernández, Head of the Livestock production Service, Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Personal communications. March 2004. The registry started receiving data on-line in May 2004, but the access is restricted to those inputting data.

[9] Mr. Pep Font, SIP Consultants. Personal communications in May 2004: their clients have experienced significant growth in the last 4-5 years.

[10] Mr. Miquel Collell, personal communications. April 2004.

[11] Mr. Pep Font, personal communications. July 2004.

[12] See http://www.etsia.upm.es/fedna/tablas.htm#arriba.

[13] Ms. Maria Ligutti, personal communications. June 2004.

[14] See http://www.fertiberia.es/informacion_fertilizacion/medioambiente/codigo_buenas_practicas/ for a summary of codes in the different Autonomous Communities.

[15] Dr. Xavier Flotats, personal communications. May 2004.

[16] http://www.adap.org.es/pages/solucion/plan.html [on-line 2004-07-16]

[17] http://www.mapya.es/es/ganaderia/pags/Emisiones_gases/emisiones.htm [on-line: 03.06.2004]

[18] Mr. Jaume Boixadera, personal communications. July 2004.

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