Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306

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Science of the Total Environment

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Assessing the multiple resource use associated with pig feed

consumption in the European Union
Fabio Sporchia a, Ermias Kebreab b, Dario Caro a,⁎
a
Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Frederikborgsvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark
b
Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis, 1103 Environmental Horticulture Bldg. One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• A multiple resource use assessment

linked to EU pig feed is performed
• Wheat, barley and soybean contribute
to the largest resource uses
• A significant part of the resource use
was outsourced to non-EU countries
• Brazil Ukraine and US are countries to
which the resource was mostly
outsourced
• The resource use intensities outside EU
were generally higher than within EU

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Feed consumption is responsible for the largest shares of resource use required for producing pork. In the
Received 29 July 2020 European Union (EU), a meat consumption decrease is expected in combination with a growth of meat produc-
Received in revised form 10 November 2020 tion driven by foreign demand. This paper presents a multiple environmental assessment of the resource use
Accepted 30 November 2020
linked to EU pig feed by performing a material flow analysis of each single feed item constituting the EU pig
Available online 8 December 2020
diet. The global relevance and the trade-driven interlinkages are disclosed by considering the country-specific re-
Editor: Kuishuang Feng source efficiencies of 254 territories. Our analysis reveals that in 2017 a total resource use of 14.5 Mha of land,
51.9 Gm3 of green water, 3.9 Gm3 of blue water, 1.23 Mtonnes of nitrogen, 0.35 Mtonnes of phosphorous, and
Keywords: 0.34 Mtonnes of potassium was required to satisfy the EU demand of pig feed. Wheat-based products accounted
Resource use for the largest share of land use (32%), green water (35%), nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer use (44% and
International trade 28%, respectively). Also soybean accounted for a significant share of land use (15%), green water (20%) and phos-
Feed consumption phorous from fertilizer use (25%). Moreover, soybean-related feed items contributed the most to the potassium
Pork use (24%). While the domestic production of cereals satisfied the demand, protein-based ingredients such as soy-
Resource footprint
bean were largely imported, mainly from South America, outsourcing the related environmental burden. More-
over, most of the feed from extra-EU countries resulted with higher resource use intensities than EU implying a
potential resource saving if feed was domestically produced. Results obtained are discussed in relation to the
many constraints that limit the possibility of increasing the EU feed production and promising alternative solu-
tions. In particular, while some solutions seem promising in terms of savings, the current EU regulation needs
to be redesigned to allow their implementation and the achievement of ambitious EU targets.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dac@envs.au.dk (D. Caro).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144306
0048-9697/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro
1. Introduction
Global meat consumption has been steadily growing during the last
decades. Indeed, according to FAOSTAT (2020), the total consumption
of meat increased by 52% from 1998 to 2018, and by 20% from 2008 to
2018. Due to dissimilarities in dietary habits, meat consumption is not
globally homogeneous with North America, Oceania and Europe being
the largest consumers of meat (FAOSTAT, 2020). Although the produc-
tion of meat, which is a source of many nutrients for humans, is mainly
localized in developing countries (74%, OECD-FAO, 2019). Moreover,
meat has become more and more an important topic within the scien-
tific debate on global environmental change and sustainable develop-
ment as well (Godfray et al., 2018), requiring a large amount of
resources and causing high environmental impacts (Poore and
Nemecek, 2018; Clark et al., 2019; Breu et al., 2016; Rizvi et al., 2018).
Among the animals farmed for meat production, ruminants are
linked to the largest emission of GHG emission, mainly consisting of di-
rect enteric methane (CH4) emission released during the digestion
(FAO, 2017). Instead, pig and poultry create little enteric CH4 emission,
resulting in a generally lower carbon intensity of pork and poultry meat
compared to beef (Caro et al., 2014; FAO, 2017). Accordingly, the largest
amount (60–80%) of GHG emission linked to pig and poultry farming
are due to the feed (Gerber et al., 2013). Besides, feed is also responsible
for the largest share of resource use required for pork and poultry meat
production (Caro et al., 2018). For instance, 98% of water use for pork
meat is due to feed cultivation (Hoekstra, 2012). Moreover, land use
for phases other than feed cultivation are negligible for pork meat pro-
duction (Reckmann et al., 2013). Finally, fertilizer use specifically per-
tains to feed cultivation phase.
While at the global level the consumption of meat is expected to
grow in the next decades (Jakobsen and Hansen, 2020), in the
European Union (EU) a consumption decrease is expected to be com-
bined with a simultaneous growth of meat production in EU mainly
driven by foreign demand (European Commission, 2019a, 2019b,
2019c). In turn, feed supply is expected to increase following the grow-
ing demand (Kim et al., 2019). Globally, EU pork production is the sec-
ond largest, accounting for 20% in 2018 (FAOSTAT, 2020).
Since domestic EU feed production is generally insufficient to satisfy
demand, EU pork meat production relies on import (Kastner et al., 2011;
Caro et al., 2014; Taherzadeh and Caro, 2019). Accordingly, besides
causing pressure on domestic resources, the feed consumed by pigs
farmed in EU is also the cause of pressure on resources in the countries
from which the feed is imported. There are some examples of assess-
ment of the environmental burden of pork meat production at various
scales, with different scopes and approaches (McAuliffe et al., 2016).
In this sense, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies focusing on typical
pig farms provided for single EU countries. For example, Reckmann
et al., 2013 performed an LCA of pork production for a typical farm in
Germany, as well as van der Werf et al. (2005), Nguyen et al. (2011),
Pirlo et al. (2016) and Olea et al. (2009) did for France, Denmark, Italy
and the UK, respectively. Also, González-García et al. (2015) and
McAuliffe et al. (2017) performed LCA studies on Portuguese and Irish
pig farms, respectively. Other were based on experimental case studies.
For example, Otten (2013) performed an assessment focused on the ef-
ficiency of nutrients use, whereas Takahashi et al. (2020) assessed the
water use efficiency of different pig farming systems. Also, pig farming
systems were studied from an emergetic perspective as well (Wang
et al., 2014). Finally, other studies adopted a footprint approach. For in-
stance, Nakamura and Itsubo (2019) performed water and carbon foot-
print analysis of the French pig farming system. Moreover, de Miguel
et al. (2015) assessed the water footprint of the Spanish pig industry.
These studies mainly focused on a single or few environmental aspects.
For example, zu Ermgassen et al. (2016) focused on land while
Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2012) and Caro et al. (2014) focused on
water and GHG emission, respectively, but no study specifically
accounted for the multiple resource use linked to the EU communitarian
2
Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306
pig feed. Focusing on single environmental issue might provide helpful
information. However, the simultaneous assessment of multiple aspects
can reveal trade-offs and provide more informative results to better ad-
dress the environmental challenges linked to pork meat sector.
In this study, we performed a multiple environmental assessment of
the resource use linked to EU pig feed, focusing on land, green water,
blue water, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium use. After compiling
an average EU-specific pig diet we revealed the consumption patterns
by performing a material flow analysis involving each single feed item
included in the diet. The global relevance, the trade-driven interlinkages
and the trade-offs are disclosed by considering the country-specific re-
source efficiencies of 254 territories.
2. Materials and methods
Our study covers the production chain of pork meat and derived
products starting from field cultivation of primary crops to the pig
farm gates (Fig. 1).
The cultivation phase accounted for the resources use linked to
the production of primary crops both in the EU and in the rest of the
world (ROW). This phase involved all the resources accounted by the
present study. The primary crops, whether domestically produced in
EU or importer, are the main input for the second phase, the production
of the final feed mix. On the one hand, it considered the production of
concentrated feed from by-products derived from the processing of pri-
mary crops into secondary or refined products. On the other hand, it
considered the direct use of primary crops as feed ingredients. The pres-
ent study only focused on the use of water in this phase. The third phase
was designed as an industrial pig farming system, where the input con-
sidered were the feed mix and the water drunk by the animals and the
service water, which consists of water used for cleaning purposes in the
farm. The output of the pig farming phase consisted of finished adult
pigs, ready for slaughtering. These are processed in the slaughtering
phase to produce pork meat (primarily in the form of carcasses) and
offal. This phase fell outside the system boundaries considered in the
present study. In the same way, the phases related to the transport of
crops and derived products (field to farm or field to mill/factory and fac-
tory to farm) are excluded. Moreover, waste and manure management
practices were excluded from this study as well.
2.1. Feed composition and consumption
We estimated the feed composition and feed consumption by fol-
lowing the analysis performed by zu Ermgassen et al. (2016). By using
the most recent available data and including recent studies, we based
our estimation on the data of Member States covering around 79% of
the total 2017 EU pork meat production (Table S1). The calculation
was based on the weighted average volumes of EU physical pig farming
performances (AHDB Market Intelligence, 2020) such as the number of
pigs weaned, reared and sold per sow per year, mortality rate, daily
weight gain, feed conversion ratio, and liveweight at slaughter. As in
zu Ermgassen et al. (2016), we filled data gaps by assigning physical
performances of similar countries to the ones where information is lack-
ing (Table S2).
The average feed composition was estimated by using dietary data
derived from studies on typical industrial pork meat production system
in Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and
the UK (details in Table S1). Since the feed mix is made of both primary
products (e.g., cereals) and by-products (e.g., oil crop cake), we referred
the calculation to primary products by applying the product and value
fractions retrieved from Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2011) to convert
by-products to primary products equivalents, as in previous studies
(zu Ermgassen et al., 2016; Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2012). Crop pro-
duction data were sourced from FAOSTAT (2020).
Hereafter we refer to land, water (green and blue), nitrogen, phos-
phorous and potassium use as resource use. In the same way, we refer
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306

Fig. 1. Flow diagram describing the production and consumption of feed for the production of pork meat produced in the European Union.

to resource use per tonne of crop as resource use intensity. The average
diet composition of pigs reared in EU is presented in Table 1.
The estimated EU28 average feed mix was composed of around 96%
of crops and derived by-products considering the mass of the feed items
Table 1
Composition of the weighted average EU28 industrial pig diet for 2017. Weights are
expressed as fed. “Others” refer to amino acids, vitamins and minerals (commonly re-
ferred as “premix”) and animal origin ingredients such as fat and fish feed, and items ac-
counting for less than 0.01% (barley flakes, extruded corn, rapeseed oil).
as fed. The remaining part was composed of special ingredients such as
“premix” product (made of vitamins, minerals and amino acids), fish
feed and animal fats. We assigned to these components of the diet the
average of the resource use intensity of the crop-based components,
since performing a punctual and precise estimation was not possible
with the available data.
2.2. Multiple resource use linked to pig feed production

Feed item % kg as fed/kg live pig In this study, we estimated the use of various resources linked to the
production of feed for pigs reared in EU. In particular, we focused on
Barley 14.23 0.391
Beet pulp 0.09 0.002 land, green water, blue water and fertilizer use.
Corn 13.90 0.382 Agricultural land is classified in categories according to the specific
Corn gluten feed 0.17 0.005 type of exploitation it undergoes. It includes arable land and land for
Corn meal 0.04 0.001 permanent or temporary crops, as well as pastures (FAO, 2020). Accord-
DDGS 1.83 0.050
Extruded soybean 0.22 0.006
ing to the feed items included in the compiled pig diet, our analysis in-
Molasses 1.37 0.038 cludes both arable land (e.g., the land associated to cereal cultivation)
Oat 0.10 0.003 and land for permanent crops (for instance, the land occupied by oil
Others 4.26 0.117 palms). According to the Water Footprint Network (Hoekstra et al.,
Palm oil 0.17 0.005
2011), the volume of water required for crop cultivation can be divided
Peas 2.24 0.062
Popcorn 0.32 0.009 in green water, blue water and grey water. Green water is defined as the
Potato flakes 0.11 0.003 rainfall that is stored in soil, whereas the blue water is defined as the
Rapeseed expeller 1.64 0.045 water abstracted from ground or surface water basins (Hoekstra et al.,
Rapeseed meal 2.44 0.067 2011). The common fertilizers are non-metallic minerals, whose im-
Rye 3.66 0.101
pacts are concentrated in the extraction and application phase (Oberle
Sorghum 0.25 0.007
Sorghum meal 0.04 0.001 et al., 2019). They generally contain nitrogen, phosphorous or potas-
Soya oil 0.24 0.007 sium, which are essential nutrients for plants. Various substances are
Soybean 1.93 0.053 available on the market, but commercial fertilizer formulations are com-
Soybean hulls 0.26 0.007
monly mainly made of a mix of these nutrients. Phosphorous and potas-
Soybean meal 4.92 0.135
Soybean meal (high protein) 2.11 0.058 sium are mineral resources extracted from mines, whereas nitrogen
Sunflower 1.61 0.044 fertilizer is sourced from air through energy intensive processes
Sunflower cake 0.81 0.022 (Oberle et al., 2019).
Tapioca 0.50 0.014
Triticale 2.61 0.072
Wheat 33.44 0.918 2.2.1. Water use for pig farming
Wheat bran 3.42 0.094 In this analysis, we consider different sources for calculation of the
Wheat meal 0.74 0.020 water use linked to pig farming activity, following Mekonnen and
Wheat silage 0.33 0.009 Hoekstra (2012). We accounted the water use for feed production
Total 100.00 2.747
(FWU as aggregate, or FGWU and FBWU for green and blue water,

3
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro
respectively), the water use for services (SWU) and the drinking water
(DWU). SWU and DWU are considered blue water.
2.2.1.1. Water use for feed production. Since our estimation refers to 2017
EU pork meat production, we used 2017 crop production data. In order
to calculate the water used for producing feed, we followed the ap-
proach used in Chapagain and Hoekstra (2006) using data derived
from Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2011). For each producing country and
for each crop, we estimated the Specific Water Demand (SWD,
m3 tonne−1) for 2017, as the ratio between the Crop Water Require-
ment (CWR, m3 ha−1), and the yield (Y, tons ha−1), as represented in
Eq. (1):
SWDc,n,2017 ¼ CWRc,n =Yc,n,2017 ð1Þ
where SWD indicates the specific water demand in country n in 2017
for crop c, CWR the water requirement of crop c in country n and Y
the yield of crop c in country n 2017. CWR was derived from
Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2011). CWR data was assumed fixed since it
basically relies on climatic factors which are assumed to be constant
for the period considered. Accordingly, we derived CWR values by using
the average yield of the same period considered by Mekonnen and
Hoekstra (2011) as shown in Eq. (2):
CWRc,n ¼ SWDc,n,96−05 ∙Yc,n,96−05 ð2Þ
where SWD indicates the specific water demand in country n for the
crop c provided by Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2011) and Y refers to the
average yield of country n during the period 1996–2005 for the crop c.
Yield average data were estimated by using FAOSTAT data. The data
we used allowed distinguishing between green and blue water, as they
are defined in the water footprint assessment manual (Hoekstra et al.,
2011). Grey water footprint calculation requires specific data referred
to the water body receiving the load of pollutants deriving from field
run-off, to the water body chemical characteristics and to local policy
(Hoekstra et al., 2011). Although previous assessment adopted a fixed
global or regional run-off rate and a fixed global acceptability limit for
the concentration of pollutants, we chose to exclude grey water calcula-
tion from this study in order to maintain the country-specific approach.
However, the previous assessments revealed that, for the feed crops
considered, the grey component of the water footprint covers the low-
est part of the total footprint (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2011). Indeed,
globally, only potatoes' and peas' grey water footprint is higher than
20% of the total water footprint (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2011). Be-
sides the water use directly linked to feed crops cultivation, a certain
amount of water is used to produce concentrate feed (Mekonnen and
Hoekstra, 2010). Following Chapagain and Hoekstra (2003), the water
use for feed mixing was assumed to be 50% of total concentrate feed in-
take (or 0.5 m3 per tonne of concentrate feed intake) (Mekonnen and
Hoekstra, 2012). The total amount of concentrate feed was estimated
following the definition of concentrate feed and roughage, as previously
done by Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010). The water use for feed mixing
was assumed to be blue water as done in the same study.
2.2.1.2. Drinking and servicing water use. Since the existing recent studies
providing drinking and servicing water use data for the EU28 countries
cover a very low share of the total EU production, we followed the ap-
proach adopted by Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010), based on
Chapagain and Hoekstra (2003) (Appendix IXb). Since only weight
based data are available and no average weaning age and age at slaugh-
ter data are available, we retrieved data from the industrial pig farming
system estimated in Chapagain and Hoekstra (2003). Since these data
are expressed per animal, we estimated the drinking and servicing
water use by using 2017 average EU slaughter pig weight (AHDB
Market Intelligence, 2020). Accordingly, we obtained the average
value of drinking and servicing water use per unit of pork meat pro-
duced. Both drinking and servicing water use are considered blue water.
4
Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306
The green SWD correspond to the green water use intensity (GWI),
whereas the sum of the blue SWD and the concentrate feed mixing,
drinking, and servicing water use correspond to the blue water intensity
(BWI).
2.2.2. Land use for feed production
Following the approach of previous studies (Nguyen et al., 2011;
Reckmann et al., 2013), we accounted the land use directly linked to
feed production, considering pig farming ‘landless’. Accordingly, we
considered negligible the area occupied by the buildings and facilities
belonging to the farms.
For each feed item associated with EU pig diet, we estimated the
land use (LU) by accounting the data on harvested area from FAOSTAT
(2020). The analysis captures the existing global diversity in terms of
land use efficiency by using country-scale crop-specific yield data for
254 territories. The reciprocal of the yield is used as an indicator of effi-
ciency, namely, land use intensity (LI).
2.2.3. Fertilizer use for feed production
In order to estimate the fertilizer use linked to pig feed production,
for each crop and country, we estimated the country and crop specific
fertilizer use intensity (FI) by using IFA and IPNI (2017) data on fertilizer
use by crop and by country and FAOSTAT (2020) data for crop produc-
tion. Since IFA and IPNI (2017) only provided the total amount of fertil-
izer use by crop (or crop group) and by country for 2014, we estimated
the FI of crop as the ratio between the IFA and IPNI (2017) data and the
2014 production data retrieved from FAOSTAT (2020), as shown in
Eq. (3):
FUc,n,2014
FIc,n ¼ ð3Þ
Pc,n,2014
where FI indicates the fertilizer intensity for the crop c in the country n,
FU indicates the total fertilizer use for crop c in country n in 2014 and P
indicates the total production of crop c in country n in 2014. The data
availability allowed estimating, individually, the nitrogen, the phospho-
rous and the potassium intensity (NI, PI and KI, respectively) per tonne
of feed item. Since currently, these are the most recent data available,
we considered the fertilizer intensity constant and applied it to 2017
data. The available data covered most of the global production for each
crop (see Table S3 in the supplementary material). No data for single
EU28 Member State was available, since only aggregate EU28 data were
provided. However, this matches the data requirement for the scope of
this study. For few crops the fertilizer use values were available only as
aggregate (e.g., “roots and tubers” for potatoes and cassava). In such
cases, we used the correspondent aggregate item available from
FAOSTAT (2020) (see details in Table S3 in the supplementary
material).
2.3. Tracing the origin of the feed
The feed consumed in EU pig farms originated in both EU and extra-
EU countries. Consequently, the present analysis is designed to capture
and reveal the global dependencies that underpin the pig farming sector
in the EU. Accordingly, we ensured that the origin of each single feed
item included in the pig diet was traced, following the international
trade pathways across 254 territories. We used FAOSTAT (2020) crop
production and trade data for 2017 and applied Kastner et al. (2011)
data treatment approach to link producers to final consumers, avoiding
double counting of re-export. This operation allows applying country-
specific resource use intensities to trade flows. Since the aim of this
operation was to trace the origin of each feed item, we applied mass
equivalence factors to convert secondary products (such as agricultural
by-products) into primary crops equivalents. Accordingly, the mass bal-
ance is respected. The applied mass conversion factors were sourced
from various studies, as detailed in the supplementary material
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro
(Table S4). Instead, to account for the different economic values among
the secondary products originating from the same crop (e.g., soybean oil
and cake), we adopted an economic allocation approach to estimate the
resource use intensities of each feed item. The economic allocation fac-
tors were sourced from Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2011). Accordingly,
our calculation accounts for the diversity among the resource use inten-
sities of each country that exported to (or produced in) EU28 any of the
feed item considered. Details on the feed items (primary and second-
ary) can be found in the supplementary material (Table S6).
For each feed item (primary equivalents) we compiled a detailed bi-
lateral trade matrix showing import and export quantities between 254
countries/territories, as described in detail in the supplementary mate-
rial (Table S7).
2.4. Estimation of virtual resource use trade
The virtual resource (VRUT) of corresponds to the crop-specific
water use linked the amounts of crop produced for being exported.
The VRUT of country n is estimated by multiplying the traded crop
(TC) by its RI as follows in Eq. (4):
VRUT c,ne,ni ¼ TC c,ne,ni  RI c,ne
VRUT refers to the resource use originated in the exporting country
ne and transferred to the importing country ni for the cultivation of the
crop c. The trade flows (TC) represent the quantity of crop traded by
exporting country ne to the importing country ni. Trade data were ex-
tracted from FAOSTAT (2020). RI corresponds to the resource use inten-
sities, as detailed in Section 2.2.
Fig. 2. The contribution of the feed crops linked to the consumption of pork meat produced in EU to the resource use. Feed crops are expressed in primary equivalents. Blue water use
includes the water use for mixing, for drinking and for servicing. “Others” includes beet, sorghum, oat, rye, triticale, peas, potato, rapeseed, palm oil, cassava and other (additives, such
as amino acids, vitamins and minerals, and animal products such as fats or fish feed).
Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306
Thanks to the application of the data treatment proposed by Kastner
et al. (2011), each trade flow links directly the producer to the final con-
sumer, avoiding the issues created by re-export flows. Accordingly, the
trade balance among virtual resource use is respected and the final con-
sumption equals to the sum of the total production plus the imports
minus the exports.
3. Results
3.1. The resource use linked to the production of pork meat made in EU
Cultivating feed and farming pigs to produce 1 tonne of pork meat in
EU in 2017 was linked to the use of 0.62 ha, 2225 m3 of green water and
165 m3 of blue water. Moreover, it leads to the use of 57.2 kg of nitrogen,
15.2 kg of phosphorous (P2O5) and 14.5 kg of potassium (K2O). The total
2017 EU pork meat production, 23 Mtonnes (Eurostat, 2020b), lead to a
total resource use of 14.5 Mha of land, 51.9 Gm3 of green water, 3.9 Gm3
of blue water, 1.23 Mtonnes of nitrogen, 0.35 Mtonnes of phosphorous,
and 0.34 Mtonnes of potassium.
The average diet composition of pigs reared in EU revealed the pre-
dominance of cereal grains comparing all the ingredients on a mass
ð4Þ basis (see Table 1). Indeed, barley, corn and wheat make up around
62% of the feed intake, considering all pig rearing stages. Other consid-
erable mass contribution came from agricultural by-products originated
from cereals or oil-crops, such as corn feed, wheat meal, DDGS
(Distiller's Dried Grains with Soluble), rapeseed meal and soybean meal.
However, the contribution of each ingredient changes remarkably
when considering the resource use linked to the same (Fig. 2).
Wheat-based products accounted for the largest share of land use
(32%), followed by barley (15%), soybean (15%), corn (12%) and
5
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306

sunflower seed (5%). Wheat also accounted for the largest green
water use (35%), followed by soybean (20%), corn (13%), barley (11%)
and sunflower seed (4%). Instead, looking at the blue water use it is
evident that the largest contribution (49%) came from the service
water used in the pig-farming phase. Drinking water contributed signif-
icantly as well accounting for 14%. Besides, the feed items that mostly
contributed to the blue water use were corn (10%), soybean (4%) and
wheat (4%).
Concerning the fertilizer use, wheat accounted for almost half (44%)
of the nitrogen use, followed by corn (20%), barley (11%), sunflower
seed (5%) and soybean (1%). Wheat-based feed items were responsible
also for the highest amounts of phosphorous use (28%), followed by
soybean (25%), corn (18%), barley (8%) and sunflower seed (5%).
Instead, soybean-related feed items contributed the most to the
potassium use (24%), slightly exceeding wheat (24%). Corn also contrib-
uted significantly (19%), together with barley (9%) and sunflower
seed (5%).
As shown in Fig. 3, land, green water, phosphorous and potassium
use were outsourced mainly to South American countries. Instead,
non-EU European countries and North American countries were re-
sponsible for most of the blue water and nitrogen use linked to the pig
feed used in EU farms in 2017. African and Oceanian countries' contribu-
tion was negligible.
Brazil was, by far, the country to which the overall resource use was
outsourced the most (Fig. 4). Its contribution mainly consisted of fertil-
izer use, and specifically phosphorous and potassium. Ukraine, the US
and Argentina also accounted for significant amounts of resource use
outsourced by the EU. Besides, Fig. 4 highlights the displacement of dif-
ferent resources among various countries worldwide. It is evident that
only African and Oceanian countries were not among the countries con-
tributed the most, whereas South America, Europe, North America and
Asia contributed significantly.
4. Discussion

Pig farming in EU in 2017 required the use of 14.5 Mha of land,

51.9 Gm3 of green water, 3.9 Gm3 of blue water, 1.23 Mtonnes of nitro-
3.2. The global displacement of resource use
gen, 0.35 Mtonnes of phosphorous, and 0.34 Mtonnes of potassium
(Fig. 2). The required feed input and, in turn, the linked resource use,
Except for blue water, the largest contribution to the total re-
originated largely from within the EU, but a significant part relied on in-
source use linked to pig farming was in the feed cultivation phase
ternational trade, especially for some ingredients of the used feed mix,
(Fig. 2). Indeed, blue water was the only resource that was involved
consuming resources elsewhere (Table 2). Overall, the EU pig feed use
in all the phases of the production chain studied, while land and fer-
was related to the exploitation of 1% of global harvested crop area and
tilizers were involved only in the cultivation, as shown in Fig. 1. In-
1% of the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium world fertilizer use
stead, blue water use was distributed variously among the three
(FAO, 2019). This corresponded to an agricultural land around the size
phases, reaching the highest contribution in the pig farming phase
of Nepal, a volume of green water around the annual Canadian total
(61.8%). Specifically, the service water alone covered almost half of
green water consumption and a volume of blue water comparable to
the overall blue water use for the production of meat (48.1%),
the annual Peruvian total blue water consumption (Hoekstra and
whereas the drinking water accounted for a lower share (13.8%).
Mekonnen, 2012). Moreover, the total amount of fertilizer use linked
The cultivation phase accounted for the second highest share of
to EU pig feed use was comparable to the total agricultural nitrogen,
blue water, reaching 38.0% of the overall blue water use. Finally,
phosphorous and potassium fertilizer use in Poland, Ukraine and
the blue water use during the final feed mix production contributed
Russian Federation, respectively, in 2017 (FAO, 2020). To produce 1 kg
only marginally to the overall blue water use (0.2%). As shown in
of pork meat in EU in 2017, 6.2 m2 of agricultural land, 2.2 m3 of green
Table 2, the largest share of resource use linked to pork production
water and 0.2 m3 of blue water was used. Moreover, it required the ap-
in EU was sourced within EU, constituting domestic consumption,
plication of fertilizers containing 57.2 g of nitrogen, 15.2 g of phospho-
while the remaining part was sourced from extra-EU countries, as
rous (P2O5) and 14.5 g of potassium (K2O).
further detailed in Fig. 3. It is remarkable that oil crops account for
As revealed by our study, large part of the resource use linked to the
the largest share of feed group outsourced.
inputs implied in the production chain of pork meat in the EU is
outsourced to extra-EU countries (Figs. 3, 4). In particular, the cultiva-
tion of oil crops (Table 2) such as soybean and oil palm are knowingly
Table 2 recognized as drivers of the use of significant amounts resources,
Resource use and relevance of domestic and outsourced feed by group with respect to the
total EU pig feed use in 2017. “Others” includes additives, such as amino acids, vitamins
often linked to large amounts of impacts, such as deforestation and bio-
and minerals, and animal products such as fats or fish feed. *Only the blue water linked diversity loss, as well as stress on water (Taherzadeh and Caro, 2019;
to the field phase is showed. Vijay et al., 2016), and GHG emission (Caro et al., 2014; Lam et al.,
2019). Soybean-based feed is also among the feed items linked to the
Origin Feed Land GW BW N P K
group (Mha) (Gm3) (Gm3)* (ktonnes) (ktonnes) (ktonnes) largest use of phosphorous and potassium inputs, which are outsourced
mainly to South America (Figs. 3, 4), whereas wheat and corn feeds are
EU Cereals 9.02 29.1 0.80 941 190 179
EU Oil crops 0.88 2.83 0.09 130 30.6 37.3 linked to the largest nitrogen use, mostly outsourced to South American
EU Other 1.18 3.53 0.09 58.6 18.0 18.1 and non-EU European countries (Fig. 3).
EU Roots and 0.03 0.10 0.01 2.55 1.52 2.65 Our results match the existing lower fertilizer application rate for
tubers soybean in the EU, compared to South American countries such as
Total domestic feed 11.12 35.58 0.99 1132.38 240.13 237.51 Brazil and Argentina (IFA and IPNI, 2017) linking the outsourcing of
Import Cereals 0.83 4.38 0.30 47.5 14.2 11.9 feed crop production to an increase of the resource use. The specific
Import Oil crops 2.47 11.8 0.16 49.1 100 89.5 case of Brazilian soybean is linked to multiple environmental concerns.
Import Other 0.05 0.11 0.00 0.26 0.11 0.12
Besides being linked to the shift from pasture to cultivation of large
Import Roots and 0.02 0.12 0.01 1.33 0.38 0.55
tubers areas of previously cleared forest land, large amounts of phosphorous
and potassium, together with lime, are required to sustain its produc-
Total imported feed 3.36 16.4 0.47 98.1 115 102
tion, creating significant amounts of environmental impacts
Total feed consumed 14.5 51.9 1.46 1231 355 340
in EU (Jankowski et al., 2018). Instead, lower quantities of nitrogen and blue
% domestic feed on 77% 68% 88% 92% 68% 70% water were required. Soybean-based South American feed export
total alone accounted for a significant share of the total resource use
% imported feed on 23% 32% 12% 8% 32% 30%
outsourced to South America (more than 85% for each resource, except
total
nitrogen, 48%). It also accounted for a remarkable part of the resource

6
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306

Fig. 3. Contribution of each region to the total resource use associated to the feed sourced outside EU.

use linked to the total EU pig feed use (10% for land, 16% for green water, American countries individually contribute (Fig. S1). Accordingly,
2% for blue water, 1% for nitrogen, 21% for phosphorous, 20% for potas- Brazil and Argentina similarly accounted for most of the land and
sium). A higher resolution analysis revealed how various South green water use linked to soybean-based feed ingredients. Instead,

Fig. 4. Indexed contribution of the main EU trade partner to the total resource use linked to pork production in EU in 2017. The index is built as sum of the shares of each resource and
country considered. The shares are calculated as the contribution of the single country on the total EU consumption for each resource. Finally, the shares are summed. Blue water use
only refers to the cultivation phase.

7
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro
Argentina's soybean-based feed ingredients dominated the blue water
use linked to the South American soybean-based feed imported by EU,
whereas Brazilian ones dominated the fertilizer use linked to the
South American soybean-based feed imported by EU.
Although a significant variety characterizes pig farms' nitrogen use
efficiency and although it reaches good levels in some cases in EU
(Quemada et al., 2020), there is still a need and possibility for an im-
provement. This would increase the domestic resource use efficiency,
and, in turn, the overall sustainability of the pig feed. Since the current
rates of extraction and use of mineral fertilizers are globally unsustain-
able (Steffen et al., 2015), this aspect should be specifically addressed by
policy actions aimed at a global increase of the sustainability level of
food consumption.
Our results confirm that the EU is mostly self-sufficient in supplying
cereals for feed and food for domestic use. However, imported feed
items may pose a significant obstacle to the achievement of a sustain-
able food system within the EU because the linked resource use might
just be shifted elsewhere creating a phenomenon such as carbon leak-
age (Zabel et al., 2019), instead of generally avoided or reduced through
trade. Moreover, EU domestic feed production itself strongly depends
on imported fertilizers (European Commission, 2019b). In addition, ex-
porters might not be subject to the strict agricultural regulation that ap-
plies to EU countries (e.g., on the use of fertilizers (Amery and
Schoumans, 2014; European Council, 1991)) or have at their disposal
enough resources or high-efficiency technologies (Nyamangara et al.,
2020). Accordingly, we find that EU countries have higher resource
use efficiency (or low resource use intensity) for the cultivation of al-
most all feed items, compared to the countries of origin of the imported
feed. Among all feed ingredients analyzed, only few intensities were
higher for EU than for exporters (oat for blue water, potato for potas-
sium, rapeseed for blue water, soybean for land). This means that EU re-
liance of import implies higher resource use than if the same quantity of
feed would be produced in EU. However, reducing the import and in-
creasing the domestic production of feed within EU could be possible
only through intensification or expansion, at least for the feed crops
that are (or can actually be) cultivated in EU (thus excluding oil palm
and cassava). Despite the supply self-sufficiency of cereal-based feed
in EU, the domestic cereals' cultivation is a driver of large amounts of
impacts (Noya et al., 2018). Consequently, considering cereals' large
contribution to the total resource use (Fig. 2), acting on the improve-
ment of the resource use within EU could improve significantly the
overall environmental performance of pork meat production in the EU.
Scherer et al. (2018) show that within EU agricultural intensification
is still feasible. However, as acknowledged by the authors, the study
presents limitations in terms of consideration of trade-offs and syner-
gies and coverage of the possible impacts. Indeed, agricultural intensifi-
cation is among the most important drivers of environmental impacts
such as biodiversity and ecosystem services loss (Díaz et al., 2019), as
well as climate change (Mbow et al., 2017), as well as expansion. More-
over, agricultural expansion in EU is not expected, since both arable land
and grazing land will shrink, whereas the land use for energy produc-
tion is expected to increase (Castillo et al., 2018).
Since both intensification and expansion present challenges and un-
certainties in terms of biophysical limits and overall environmental ben-
efit, alternative solutions with much less controversial effectiveness or
feasibility must be investigated.
In this sense, Kebreab et al. (2012) shows that the use of optimized
feed can significantly increase the nutrient use efficiency in pigs. For ex-
ample, the introduction of amendments in pig diets reduces the loss of
nutrients linked to the soil application of the manure produced by
pigs (Yitbarek et al., 2017). Moreover, Kebreab et al. (2016) proved
that the introduction of specialty feed ingredients in pig diets can signif-
icantly reduce the overall impact associated with pig farming.
Another possibility might be represented by the introduction of sub-
stitute ingredients in pigs' diet (Rauw et al., 2020). Possible crop-based
feed items substitute to soybean for pig farming have been investigated
8
Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306
by Mackenzie et al. (2016) and Van Krimpen et al. (2013). The latter in-
dicated by-products of crops already largely cultivated in EU as well as
aquatic cultivations such as macroalgae, seaweed and duckweed, as
possible cultivated protein-source substitutes, but remarked the
existing general uncertainties and trade-offs for most of them. Recent
studies (Wu et al., 2020; Tzachor, 2019) revealed promising results
from the use of algae as pig feed, resulting in multiple environmental
benefits compared to soybean, if integrated with specific technologies
within a circular economy frame. In this sense, in the case of a partial
substitution of the soybean meal ingredient with seaweed, coupled
with integrated manure management practices, could reduce the over-
all required feed, resulting in a significant reduction of the resources re-
quired for the EU pork production. Specifically, applying the solution
proposed by Wu et al., 2020 to the production system hypothesized in
the present study, a total of 0.92 Mha (−6.4%) of land (corresponding
to the size of Cyprus), 4.51 Gm3 (8.7%) of green water, 0.07 Gm3
(1.8%) of blue water, together with 0.01 Mtonnes (0.6%) of nitrogen,
0.04 Mtonnes (11.1%) of phosphorous and 0.04 Mtonnes (10.6%) of po-
tassium would be saved. Integrating pig farming with energy produc-
tion might as well increase the overall sustainability of pork meat
production (Parajuli et al., 2018).
Another possibility is the use of non-cultivated substitutes, such as
bio-waste. In this sense, zu Ermgassen et al. (2016) revealed the large
potential environmental benefits deriving from the introduction in pig
diets of food waste from retail sector. By applying the solution proposed
by zu Ermgassen et al. (2016) to the industrial system hypothesized in
the present study, a total of 3.11 Mha of agricultural land (21.5%)
could be saved (slightly more than the size of Belgium), while ensuring
a highly effective treatment of food waste. Instead, Salemdeeb et al.
(2017) analyzed the possibility of introducing municipal food waste as
alternative feed ingredient, showing environmental and health benefits.
It is remarkable that the amount of household food waste is significantly
larger than food waste from retail sector in EU (Stenmarck et al., 2016),
thus representing a valid potential source of feed.
A further possibility is represented by the introduction of insect-
based protein source ingredients to pig feed mix. Smetana et al.
(2019) revealed that the production of insect-based feed ingredients
presents many environmental benefits compared to traditional ingredi-
ents, starting from agri-food waste. Specifically, according to Amza and
Tamiru (2017), a significant part of soybean meal can be substituted by
insects in the diet of all the phases of pig growth with no significant neg-
ative effect. Accordingly, by using a conservative approach, hypothesiz-
ing a substitution rate of even just 50% of the soybean meal in all stages
of the industrial farming system considered in the present study, a total
of 0.80 Mha (−5.5%) of land (corresponding to slightly more than three
times the size of Luxembourg), 3.91 Gm3 (7.5%) of green water,
0.06 Gm3 (1.6%) of blue water, together with 0.01 Mtonnes (0.5%) of ni-
trogen, 0.03 Mtonnes (9.6%) of phosphorous and 0.03 Mtonnes (9.2%) of
potassium would be saved. Not only insect rearing results in feed ingre-
dients, but also sustainable fertilizers. Consequently, if this solution will
be applied to pig feed it could i) reduce the overall environmental bur-
den linked to agri-food waste by upcycling it as feed for insects, ii) pro-
vide a valid feed source reducing the demand of feed-crops production,
iii) generate sustainable fertilizer, possibly reducing the exploitation of
mineral resources. Furthermore, integrating the use of insect-based
feed ingredients with side-stream technologies inspired by circular
economy (for instance, on-site energy production from manure)
might further increase the overall sustainability of EU pork meat pro-
duction. However, according to the present regulation, animal-based
feed ingredient (including insect-based) are not allowed for pig farm-
ing, although few countries adopted less strict national rules, partially
permitting the inclusion of insect-based non-protein ingredients, such
as lipids (European Commission, 2017). Some steps forward to over-
come this limitation have been made (zu Ermgassen et al., 2016). In
this sense, Jędrejek et al. (2016) specifically investigated the possibility
of using animal by-products as direct substitute of protein feed items,
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro
highlighting the potential benefit deriving from a change in the EU reg-
ulation. However, in order to ensure the safety of such substitution, a
constant supervision and strict controls must be performed.
Although one of the priorities of the EU Common Agricultural Policy
(CAP) is increasing the sustainability of communitarian food produc-
tion, many flaws have been highlighted, revealing its inadequacy to
properly stimulate the transition to a sustainable agriculture in the
Member States (Pe'er et al., 2020). The recent Farm To Fork Strategy
(FTFS) proposed by the European Commission (EC) to the European
Parliament, as part of the European Green Deal (European Commission,
2019c), addresses some of those flaws setting the roadmap to a more
sustainable food consumption that not only affects the EU but also
aims at influencing the global supply chain (European Commission,
2020). The FTFS highlights the great potential leverage that such transi-
tion would have, as the EU is the world's largest food importer and ex-
porter. Being the EU the largest pork meat exporter globally, the FTFS
should specifically consider the importance of acting on its worldwide
long supply chain.
Despite these present limits and bans, limiting the exploitation of al-
ternative feed ingredients, the roadmap traced by FTFS is expected to in-
duce a groundbreaking turning point in EU. Indeed, as highlighted by
IPIFF (2020), the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) is currently de-
fining the regulation on the use of insect-based proteins in pig feed in
the EU, in agreement with the FTFS. This development is expected to
overcome the current ban on the use of animal-sourced protein in pig
feed, opening to new possibilities to effectively increase the overall sus-
tainability of future pork meat production. In this sense, Lassaletta et al.
(2019) specifically addresses the question of future demand of pork
meat, highlighting the expected variation of feed consumption and
nitrogen use efficiency, according to different scenarios, and revealing
the urgent need for an immediate action to ensure the reduction of
the environmental impacts associated with future pork meat
consumption.
4.1. The final pork meat consumer as driver of resource use
By further expanding our analysis we investigated the final con-
sumers of the pork meat made in EU in 2017, through the application
of the data treatment proposed by Kastner et al. (2011), using pro-
duction data from FAOSTAT (2020) (which for EU only differed
around 2% from Eurostat), and Comtrade data on trade. As for feed
trade analysis, we applied the conversion factors retrieved from
Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010). COMTRADE data allowed assigning
specific conversion factors, matching the HS classification used for
the conversion factors (see details in the supplementary material,
Table S8).
The pork meat produced in EU is not only consumed in Member
States, where the net import from non-EU countries is lower than
0.1%, but also in many countries worldwide. As represented in Table 3,
Table 3
The foreign largest consumers of pork meat made in EU in 2017 (Mtonnes) and the pro-
portion of the same over the total amount of pork meat consumed in the same countries.
Country Mtonnes EU % EU pork on total
pork consumed pork consumption
China 1036.7
Japan 472.5
Hong Kong 355.1
South Korea 163.8
US 135.0
Philippines 111.0
Australia 100.5
Singapore 54.3
New Zealand 39.0
Serbia 35.4
Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306
large amounts of pork meat were consumed in East and South Asian
countries. Although China was the largest consumer, pork meat made
in EU only covered a low share (1.8%) of the total pork meat consumed
in the same country. However, other countries' pork meat consumption
significantly relied on EU production to satisfy their demand (Table 3).
For example, it is remarkable that in many Asian countries, pork meat
produced in EU covered a significant share of market volume.
Therefore, by linking the final consumers to the resource inputs re-
quired, we show that a considerable part of the resource use is driven
by non-EU countries' demand, besides by Member States themselves.
As highlighted by Oberle et al. (2019), international exchanges and
cross-country cooperation play significant roles in the transitions to-
wards sustainability. In this sense, countries' responsibilities and capa-
bilities must be accounted when defining common effort strategy at
global level to reduce resource intensities. Accordingly, the FTFS aims
at adopting a consumption perspective to reveal the responsibility
along the whole food supply chain.
The present study focused on industrial pig farming system. How-
ever, EU pig farming systems and production quantity, as well as phys-
ical performances, are largely variable among EU countries (AHDB
Market Intelligence, 2020; Eurostat, 2020b; Marquer et al., 2014). For
example, Germany, Spain and France were the largest producer in
2019, together covering more than 50% of EU pork production (22%,
20%, and 9%, respectively) (Eurostat, 2020b). Nonetheless, overall, in
EU, the industrial farming systems (more than 50 pig heads) are the
most diffused, covering around 95% of production (Eurostat, 2020b).
However, small size farms (1–9 heads) are significant in Bulgaria,
Croatia, Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia whereas me-
dium size farms (10–49 heads) are significant in Croatia, Cyprus, Poland
and Slovenia (Eurostat, 2020b). Consequently, our estimates are repre-
sentative for the communitarian level of EU. Moreover, by developing a
unique and standard diet for the whole EU production, the present
study overlooks organic farming activities, or specific breeds. A develop-
ment of the present study might include the comparison of different
diets (e.g., organic feed or only local feed), as well as a comparison
among different pig breeds.
4.2. Comparison with other studies
Previous studies performed by following a life-cycle approach fo-
cused on pig farming sector, focusing on single or few EU countries
(Reckmann et al., 2013; González-García et al., 2015; Dalgaard
et al., 2007; van der Werf et al., 2005; Pirlo et al., 2016). However,
the variety of the assumptions made (e.g., origin of the feed, manure
management practices, and allocation techniques) and approaches
(e.g., limited data availability, system boundaries, functional unit,
exclusions, and impact categories.) adopted by this kind of studies
limits their comparability (Reckmann et al., 2012). Other studies es-
timated the total resource use linked to EU pork meat production
with various approaches, mainly focusing on single resources (zu
Ermgassen et al., 2016; Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2012). Instead,
the present study focuses on the overall communitarian EU indus-
trial pig farming system focusing assessing the multiple resource
use linked to the feed inputs required, revealing, on one hand, the
overall environmental burden linked to EU pig feed, and, on the
other hand, its global displacement and drivers.
zu Ermgassen et al. (2016) found an average land intensity of
1.8% 4.02 m2/kg pork (carcass weight) for the pig feed required by pig farm-
17.8% ing in EU, which is 35% lower than our estimates (6.2 m2/kg pork carcass
18.1% weight). However, the data and the assumptions differed significantly.
30.2%
For example, the estimation of the land intensity of feed items was
1.4%
5.5% based just on the largest exporters, whereas the present study captures
17.7% the variability of the totality of countries involved in the international
34.3% trade of feed items. The meta-analysis performed by Poore and
34.9% Nemecek (2018) found a world average intensity of 17.4 m2/kg bone-
10.4%
free pork meat, which corresponds roughly to 12.16 m2/kg pork
9
F. Sporchia, E. Kebreab and D. Caro
(carcass weight), and a median value of 13.4 m2/kg bone-free pork,
which corresponds to around 9.4 m2/kg. In this case, a perfect compar-
ison is not possible, due to the variability of pork farming systems
worldwide. However, the lower value of our estimation might be ex-
plained by the high land use efficiency for the production of cereals in
the EU, which represent the largest part of the pig diet and, in turn
could largely affect the overall land intensity of EU pig feed.
Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010) found 2.9 m3/kg carcass for green
water and 0.3 m3/kg for blue water as world average for the period
1996–2005, for industrial pig farming system. Our analysis shows
lower results (23% and 45% for green and blue water, respectively),
which might be linked to the increasing general improvement of the re-
source use efficiencies that affected agriculture globally. However, a di-
rect comparison in not possible since data referring to EU were not
provided and the two studies refer to different years.
5. Conclusions
This study has revealed that to satisfy the EU demand of pig feed in
2017 a total resource use of 14.5 Mha of land, 51.9 Gm3 of green
water, 3.9 Gm3 of blue water, 1.23 Mtonnes of nitrogen, 0.35 Mtonnes
of phosphorous, and 0.34 Mtonnes of potassium was required. The EU
average pig diet includes large amounts of cereals, whose demand is
satisfied by EU own production, consuming resources domestically. In-
stead, the protein ingredients derived from soybean and soybean-
related by-products were largely imported, mainly from South
American countries, shifting the burden from the EU to foreign
countries. We found that in almost every case the cultivation of crops
for pig feed was outsourced from outside the EU countries with higher
resource use intensities than EU. This means that significant amounts
of resources could have been saved if the feed items were domestically
produced within the EU. However, many constraints limit the possibil-
ity of increasing the EU agricultural production. Accordingly, the current
research is focusing on feed item substitutes from alternative sources,
such as municipal or retail food waste, algae, and insects. We showed
that the implementation of these solutions in the context of the EU
pork sector could lead to save significant amounts of resources
worldwide, while simultaneously improve the efficiency of waste or
by-products management. Furthermore, the application of a combina-
tion of the various solutions presented in this study should be investi-
gated to assess the possibility to obtain even larger savings, for
example through the substitution of traditional feed ingredients with
a mix of insect products, algae or seaweed and agricultural by-
products. Although these solutions seem promising in terms of resource
savings, the current EU regulation needs to be redesigned to allow the
introduction of these alternative ingredients in EU pig diet. This change
would result in a great step forward to the achievement of the objec-
tives of the Farm To Fork Strategy, and to a general increase of the sus-
tainability level of the food sector in EU, also matching the aim of the
European Green Deal. These improvements can, in turn, result in an
overall increase of the food consumption sustainability level also in
extra-EU importers.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Fabio Sporchia: Methodology, Data curation, Formal analysis,
Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Ermias Kebreab:
Conceptualization, Validation, Supervision. Dario Caro: Conceptualiza-
tion, Resources, Supervision, Writing - original draft, Writing - review
& editing.
Declaration of competing interest
We have no conflict of interests for the paper titled: Assessing the
multiple resource use associated with pig feed consumption in the
European Union.
10
Science of the Total Environment 759 (2021) 144306
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144306.
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