Ecological Engineering 54 (2013) 128–135

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Ecological Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoleng

Emergy evaluation of environmental sustainability of poultry farming that

produces products with organic claims on the outskirts of mega-cities in China
Li-Xiao Zhang ∗ , Qiu-Hong Hu, Chang-Bo Wang
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

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

Article history: With increasing concerns about food safety and the enhanced purchasing power of people in China,
Received 10 September 2012 organic agricultural production for domestic consumption is booming, primarily on the outskirts of
Received in revised form megacities. The aim of this study was to perform an emergy evaluation of the environmental sustaina-
27 December 2012
bility of two typical kinds of poultry farms with organic claims in a suburb of Beijing, i.e., a backyard
Accepted 16 January 2013
rearing system and an orchard rearing system. The results of a similar evaluation conducted in Italy were
Available online 24 February 2013
also used for reference and comparison. The results show that the two poultry farming systems in China
had poor environmental sustainability, with ESI values less than 1, despite the fact that they had used no
Keywords:
Emergy
antibiotics and chemicals, and were trying to increase free range for chickens. The two systems in China
Organic farming system were superior to conventional production systems, but inferior to the grass organic farming system used
Poultry production in Italy, as demonstrated by the indicator comparisons of EYR, ELR and ESI. In light of the potential for
Environmental sustainability decreasing environmental pressure, enhancing ecological complexity (indicated by Em Ex R) and increas-
ing overall sustainability, raising poultry in forests or orchards is a good alternative choice in rural China.
Nevertheless, organic farming practices in China are experiencing challenges on many levels: (1) they
conflict with China’s food safety strategy; (2) they are often having small scale operations; (3) they lack
knowledge of best production practices; and (4) they have a bad reputation with the credit system.
© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction more middle- and upper-class consumers of first-tier cities prefer

Due to growing ecological awareness and frequent worldwide
food scares such as, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE),
foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), bird flu and bacterial contamina-
tion, the consumer’s trust in food safety has drastically decreased
during the last two decades. Consumers are looking for safer and
better controlled foods that are produced in more environmentally
friendly, authentic, and local systems. Organically produced foods
are widely believed to satisfy the above demands, causing less
environmental damage and providing higher nutritive value
(Rembialkowska, 2004). In China the domestic consumption of
organic food was also triggered by hundreds of food safety issues,
although the primary incentive for the development of the organic
food production remains the export market (Sternfeld, 2009). Some
farmers in relatively developed regions of China are abandoning
the monocrops with high chemical input and livestock factory
farms of the industrial paradigm and adopting more sustainable
methods, e.g., organic poultry farming is becoming popular as
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 59893229; fax: +86 10 8805523.
E-mail address: zhanglixiao@bnu.edu.cn (L.-X. Zhang).
organic chicken products.
The principles of organic farming make it obvious that envi-
ronmental friendliness or benefits for the environment are a key
concept of organic farming (IFOAM, 2007; Dabbert, 2006). Although
the use of synthetic chemical compounds is easily monitored
and controlled, limiting the intensity of production and sustain-
ing the health of the ecosystem are not so easy, i.e., the organic
principles addressing environmental benefits cannot be measured
directly. Organic production systems may improve local sustaina-
bility, however, their effects on global sustainability is not easily
assessed. It should also be kept in mind that by treating one
problem we often create others, sometimes even more severe con-
ditions from the perspective of the larger system. Therefore, it is
a fundamental principle that organic farming should perform bet-
ter environmentally than conventional agriculture from a holistic
viewpoint. So far, several methods that focus on a small subset of
environmental indicators are available for evaluating the environ-
mental performance of organic farming systems (Haas et al., 2001;
Rattanasuteerakula and Thapa, 2012; Toma and Mathijs, 2007;
Wood et al., 2006). Most studies measure and compare only a small
subset of environmental indicators and are limited to a specific
region or even to one experimental site. However, the environ-
mental sustainability of organic farming requires measurements

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 L.-X. Zhang et al. / Ecological Engineering 54 (2013) 128–135
that permit the suitability of the system to be assessed in both the
short and long term and, simultaneously, allow the different sys-
tems to be compared in both local and global contexts (Castellini
et al., 2006).
The emergy evaluation methodology (Odum, 1996) emphasizes
methods to exploit renewable resources more efficiently, such that
the costly (with respect to resource limitations) non-renewables
may last longer. This goal matches the aim of organic production
systems (Coppola et al., 2008). In addition, the emergy method
takes into account all the free environmental contributions to the
system, such as sunlight and wind, as well as the indirect environ-
mental support contributed in human labor and services, which
facilitates analysis of environmental performance of a system on
the global scale. Using solar energy embodied as the measurement
base, emergy is defined as the quantity of solar energy that was
used, directly and indirectly, to obtain a final product or service
(Odum, 1996; Ulgiati and Brown, 2009). The units of the solar trans-
formity are solar emjoules J−1 , abbreviated as sej J−1 . Other Unit
Emergy Values (UEV) are the specific emergy, solar emjoules kg−1
(sej kg−1 ) and the emergy to money ratio. One of the strengths of
the emergy method is its energetic unification of different resource
inputs of a production system, avoiding difficulties and subjec-
tivity that could take place with other methods (Bastianoni and
Marchettini, 1996; Zhang et al., 2009), and, therefore, facilitates
the comparison of different production systems.
Emergy has been widely used to compare different farm-
ing alternatives (De Barros et al., 2009; Lu et al., 2009, 2010;
Zhang et al., 2011, 2012) and different land uses (Lefroy and
Rydberg, 2003; Martin et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2007), and
to analyze environmental sustainability of agricultural systems
nationally (Chen et al., 2006; Cohen et al., 2006; Rydberg
and Haden, 2006) and locally (Bastianoni et al., 2001; Cavalett
et al., 2006; Vassallo et al., 2007). The comparison of organic
and conventional farming activities has also been covered by
emergy analysis (Castellini et al., 2006; Coppola et al., 2008;
Gonçalves Lima et al., 2012; La Rosa et al., 2008; Xi and Qin,
2009).
Emergy synthesis was used in this study to evaluate two poul-
try farming systems with organic production claims in the Beijing
suburban area to determine the environmental sustainability of
organic cultivation activities associated with urban agriculture in
China. The two alternative production systems are a backyard
chicken rearing system and an orchard chicken rearing system. In
addition, the results were compared to results of similar systems
in Italy (Castellini et al., 2006). The main goals of this paper are:
(1) to measure the environmental sustainability of poultry farming
activities in a suburban area of a mega-city in China with organic
production claims; (2) to compare the environmental cost of differ-
ent organic poultry production systems and their products in China
to those in another country of the world; (3) to present scientific
information for optimizing the mode of production and identifying
best management practices; and (4) to highlight emergy analysis
as a useful tool to provide practical indicators for organic farming
assessment and certification.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Location and study sites
Organic farms for domestic markets are generally small-scale,
and many are concentrated near cities and regions that have a
diverse consumer base (e.g., suburban Beijing and Tianjin). Raising
poultry in courtyards and in woodlands are two prevailing models
in rural China and particularly in the provinces of Beijing, Shan-
dong, Shanxi and Guizhou. The two poultry rearing systems we
129
investigated, i.e., a backyard rearing system and an orchard rearing
system, are located in the Jingyu village of the Huairou Region of
Beijing (N40 23 48.43 , E116 29 37.86 ) (Fig. 1). Both systems claim
to be using an organic production mode and both are preparing to
apply for certification as an organic producer. The two systems do
not rely on formulated feed. Specifically, the backyard chicken rais-
ing system depends mainly on corn and vegetables, while chickens
in the orchard system pick grass and worms in the orchard as foods.
Nevertheless, corn is also needed as a supplement to natural food
in the orchard rearing system to increase productivity. The total
length of the rearing cycle from the chick phase to slaughter, includ-
ing a time for egg laying, is about 2 years for both rearing systems.
In addition to the feeding pattern, one of the differences between
these two systems is the different poultry breeds with different
lengths of time for egg laying and final weight.
The backyard chicken farm consisted of 70 m2 , of which 30 m2
is occupied by a chicken house, and the other 40 m2 is a courtyard
for free range. Considering the annual capacity of 100 chickens,
the average space for a bird is 0.7 m2 . This rearing system is pri-
marily for egg production, with an annual output of 792.00 kg, and
then all the chickens are sold after growth and an egg laying period
of 2 years. The strain of chicken was Hy-line Grey, whose grow-
ing period is about 5 months to egg production, with a final body
weight of about 1.7 kg.
The second poultry farm was in an orchard, and used the Beijing
Fatty Chicken strain. The cycle of the second poultry production
system is also about 2 years, of which 6 months is needed for
chicken growth and the egg production period lasts only about 1.5
years. About 2000 chickens are housed in this orchard with a total
area of 6 ha (30 m2 /bird). The annual egg laying capability of this
system is 6.48 kg per bird per year, and the final weight of the bird
is 3.25 kg.
As mentioned above, the previous study in Italy by Castellini
et al. (2006) was used for comparison. Two poultry production
systems from Italy, the conventional scaled rearing system and
grassland organic rearing system, were compared to the two sys-
tems from China. The four systems were characterized by different
feeding patterns, e.g., varied space allotments and different culture
cycles (Table 1).
2.2. Emergy analysis
The emergy method is a ‘donor-side’ evaluation approach
(Bastianoni et al., 2001; Ulgiati et al., 2007), and it looks at the sys-
tem in a holistic way, by underlining the need for the system to
adjust its behavior to the performance of the surrounding ecosys-
tem, instead of analyzing local efficiency and local flows in an
analytical and deterministic way.
Odum (1996) and his colleagues give detailed explanations
of the application of emergy accounting procedures for a variety
of systems. The different emergy sources were aggregated as
renewable resources from nature (R), non-renewable resources
from nature (N), renewable (PR ) and nonrenewable (PN ) fractions
of goods and services purchased from outside (Zhang et al., 2011).
Separation of renewable and nonrenewable inputs is essential for
emergy analysis, as it makes it possible to define several emergy-
based indicators that can provide decision support tools, especially
in the case where there are several alternatives to choose from
(Bastianoni and Marchettini, 1996; Odum, 1996). Processes using
a larger percentage of renewable energy need to be identified,
because they are likely to be more sustainable than those using
a larger percentage of nonrenewable energy (Lefroy and Rydberg,
2003; Martin et al., 2006). Thus, considering the evolutionary
process involved in emergy methodology, the renewability factor
was incorporated in this study to gain a better assessment of
130 L.-X. Zhang et al. / Ecological Engineering 54 (2013) 128–135

Fig. 1. Location of study sites and photos of the poultry rearing systems in a suburban area of Beijing. The upper one is the orchard system and the lower one is the backyard
system.

each system’s sustainability, the values of which were based on
previous work by Agostinho et al. (2008), Ortega et al. (2005) and
Ulgiati et al. (1994, 2005). The renewable fraction of purchased
emergy was calculated by multiplying the flows of materials and
services that enter the system by the renewability factor, denoted
as PR . Correspondingly PN represents the non-renewable fraction.
Emergy-based indices and ratios that are used to evaluate the
behavior of the investigated production systems are listed and
described in Table 2. It is worthwhile to note that the indica-
tor of emergy/exergy ratio (Em Ex R) was also included besides the
conventional emergy indices and ratios, which is related to the effi-
ciency with which a system organizes itself or, if steady, maintain
its complexity (Jørgensen et al., 2004). This indicator is different
from the concept of transformity: transformity is the emergy that
contributes to a production system divided by energy content of a
product, while the Em Ex R represents an emergy flow divided by
the eco-exergy of the whole system driven by this emery flow
(Bastianoni and Marchettini, 1997). The eco-exergy was calculated
according to the methodology proposed by Jørgensen (2006, 2007).
Since 1 year was taken as the time scale for the present analysis
of these two chicken farming systems, all pieces of equipment con-
sidered in the production systems were converted to annual flows
based on their expected useful life and operation period accord-
ing to local investigation. In particular, since the production cycle
of poultry farming, including chicken growth and egg-laying are
beyond 1 year, i.e., 2 years for our case, they are also scaled to
a 1-year cycle. The data on the inputs and outputs of these two
production systems, including local geomorphology (solar irradi-
ation, rain, soil erosion, water resource, etc.), were recorded and
tested throughout by questionnaires, interviews, and statistical
databases, and processed by transforming mass quantities (kg)
and energy quantities (J) into emergy units by multiplying the
raw amounts by appropriate specific emergy factors and trans-
formities. Besides, the global emergy baseline used in this study
is 15.83E+24 sej/year. The comparable results in Castellini et al.
(2006) were also transferred on this baseline. The transformities
used in this study include labor and services required to produce
economic goods. It is also worthwhile to note that the ground
water pumped for poultry farming has been considered as a non-
renewable resource, since water resource are scarce in Northern
China and replacement is very slow.
In this study, we assumed that the total invested energy was
split by the production of egg from the production of final chicken
product. To avoid confusion, we only calculated the transformity of

Table 1
Comparison of the main characteristics of the four poultry rearing systems.

Items Studied systems (China) Comparison systems (Italy)

Backyard rearing system Orchard rearing system Grassland rearing system Conventional scaled rearing system

Building and space allowance

Birds per unit (n) 100 2000 1000 15,600
Surface area covered (m2 ) 30 300 96 988
Density (birds/m2 covered surface) 3.33 6.67 10.4 15.1
Breathing space (m2 /bird) 0.4 30 9.9 –
Production cycle
Growing time (days) 150 180 81 49
Egg-laying period (days) 570 540 – –
Daily diets (g/bird)
Corn 100 50 38.64 41.47
Vegetable 50 – – –
Soybean meal – – 14.44 14.78
Fava bean – – 17.41 –
Wheat-bran – 4.38 20.25 3.47
Peanut cake – 6.25a – –
Productive performance (for one cycle)
Final weight (kg) 1.7 3.25 2.21 2.73
Total egg production (kg) 12.54 9.72 – –
a
For chick only.
 L.-X. Zhang et al. / Ecological Engineering 54 (2013) 128–135
Table 2
Category totals and emergy indices used in this study.
Index Symbol/formula
Renewable resource from nature R Renewable flows directly available to the system, such as solar radiation, wind,
Non-renewable resource from nature N Including local soil, groundwater, and other environmental resources that are not
Renewable fraction of purchased resources PR
Non-renewable fraction of purchased resources PN
Total emergy used U = R + N + PR + PN
Renewable emergy fraction %R = (R + PR )/U
Emergy yield ratio EYR = U/PN
Environmental loading ratio ELR = (N + PN )/(R + PR )
Emergy exchange ratio EER = [($income ) × (seJ/$)country ]/U
Emergy sustainability index ESI = EYR/ELR
Emergy/exergy ratio Em Ex R = U/Ex
chicken and adopted split principle of emergy allocation, i.e., allo-
cating the total emergy entering the system to chickens according
to their energy content proportion. Instead of allocating 100% of
the total emergy U to each item, one was considered a co-product
of the other (Bastianoni and Marchettini, 2000). This seems to be a
better choice in cases where production is diversified, but remains
more or less within the same type of output.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Emergy evaluation
The emergy flows calculated for the two poultry farming sys-
tems are itemized in Tables A1 and A2 (see Appendix). Unlike crop
farming, poultry production relies relatively less on local renew-
able resources such as sunlight, wind and rainfall, but largely on
feed sources. Since the energy and resource flows that interact
to produce an agricultural product reflect the emergy structure
of that product (Rydberg and Jansén, 2002), the major differ-
ence between the two systems can be observed in their emergy
structures. Fig. 2 illustrates the emergy structures of these two
poultry farming systems according to sequence in the accounting
table.
As shown in Fig. 2, for both poultry production systems, the
inputs can span several orders of magnitude. For the backyard
poultry farming system with a size of 100 chickens, the lowest
emergy input is rain, i.e., 6.99E+12 sej year−1 , while the largest
input is corn with 6.72E+15 sej year−1 . The difference between
them is three orders of magnitude. A similar difference can be
found in the orchard rearing system. The largest input is corn at
5.88E+16 sej year−1 , and the lowest input is the groundwater at
1.84E+14 sej year−1 . The large area of the orchard helps to increase
utilization of renewable resources of sunlight and rain, one of the
benefits of which is providing grass and fruit for poultry feeding
under the trees. Similarly, in the orchard chicken rearing system
the emergy of rain input is 5.99E+15 sej year−1 on an area of 6 ha
with 2000 chickens.
131
Description
rain and biomass on the land.
replaced within an annual cycle.
The fraction of the emergy of imported resources that is considered to be of
renewable origin.
The fraction of the emergy of imported resources that is considered to be of
non-renewable origin.
Total emergy flows needed to support a production system.
The ratio of the renewable emergy invested divided by the total emergy driving
the system.
The ratio of total emergy (U) to the emergy of those inputs that are fed back from
outside the system. The index measures the return on the emergy investment, i.e.
the ability of a process to exploit local (renewable and nonrenewable sources) by
investing economic resources from outside.
Ratio of nonrenewable (local and imported) emergy resources to the renewable
emergy flows, indicating the load on the environment generated by
human-dominated nonrenewable flows.
Ratio of the emergy embodied in the money received to the emergy embodied in
the product exported to an outside market. An indicator of the emergy benefits or
losses from the sale of products.
It is the composite ratio of the emergy yield ratio EYR to the environmental
loading ratio ELR, indicating the process trade-off between the emergy advantage
provided by the process and its environmental pressure.
Here Ex is the eco-exergy content of poultry farming system. It is the ratio of
emergy flow to eco-exergy of the whole system, measuring the
eco-thermodynamic efficiency and the ecological complexity of the systems.
It is shown clearly by Fig. 2 that the corn input represents
the largest emergy flow for both production systems, account-
ing for 69.00% and 45.15% for the backyard rearing system and
the orchard rearing system, respectively. However, the different
food raw ingredients used and the emergy necessary for producing
such ingredients affect the emergy value of the two systems differ-
ently. In the backyard chicken rearing system, corn and vegetables
were the most important emergy cost, while the corn, wheat bran,
and peanut cake were the three largest feed expenditures for the
orchard rearing system.
The emergy for the bird housing and fencing were not very
high, accounting for 7.08% and 8.77% of total emergy invested
for the two production systems, respectively. At the same time,
these two poultry farming systems are not water intensive, but
they can be regarded as labor intensive. Labor emergy represents
the third largest input for the backyard poultry farming system
(9.63E+14 sej year−1 ) and the second largest for the orchard rais-
ing system (1.54E+16 sej year−1 ). It is also worthwhile to note that
the rent cost contributes the third largest investment in the emergy
structure of the orchard poultry raising system, which represents
the opportunity cost of the land use under trees for chicken farming.
3.2. Indicator comparisons
Two other poultry production systems in Italy were used for
comparison, to gain better insight into the production systems in
China. A number of indicators were calculated for the assessment of
the performance and the sustainability of the poultry farming sys-
tems, namely transformity, fraction renewable (%R), emergy yield
ratio (EYR), environmental loading ratio (ELR), emergy exchange
ratio (EER), emergy/exergy ratio (Em Ex R), and the emergy sustaina-
bility index (ESI) and (Table 3).
Although the transformity is not usually included in the emergy
indices for a system, it is a very important indicator of the effi-
ciency of a production system, and of the quality of the products
as well (Lu et al., 2006). When comparing two or more processes
yielding the same output, a lower transformity can be seen as a
132 L.-X. Zhang et al. / Ecological Engineering 54 (2013) 128–135

Table 3
Emergy indices for the four poultry farming systems.

Items China Italy

Backyard rearing system Orchard rearing system Grassland rearing system Conventional scaled rearing system

Transformity (sej/J) 2.17E+06 1.58E+06 9.73E+05 1.03E+06

%R 0.30 0.30 0.29 0.16
EYR 1.43 1.48 1.51 1.19
ELR 2.34 2.28 2.04 5.21
EER 2.43 4.05 – –
ESI 0.61 0.65 0.74 0.23
Em Ex R 1.03E+04 3.67E+03 8.83E+03 9.76E+03

measure of higher efficiency: less resources are needed to yield
the same amount of product, or more product is obtained with
the same amount of emergy invested (Odum, 1996; Vassallo et al.,
2007). However, this is an indicator sensitive only to the conver-
sion efficiency, while not affected by alternative resource types. A
process can be efficient in processing either renewable or nonre-
newable resources. The transformity values obtained in this study
Fig. 2. Structure of detailed emergy inputs for the two poultry farming systems. The
items are arranged clockwise as a logarithmic coordinate system.
are 2.17E+06 sej/J for chicken products obtained from the back-
yard farming system, and 1.58E+06 sej/J for those obtained from
the orchard farming system. Both of these values are significantly
higher than those yielded from systems in Italy, indicating that
the two Chinese production systems are actually less efficient in
the transformation of potential energy. These results could be
attributed to the relatively long life cycle and extensive rearing
process in China. As for the two production systems in this study,
the backyard organic farming system has a lower production effi-
ciency than the orchard farming system, which can be explained
by the relatively low efficiency caused by feeding under extensive
management.
Across the four systems examined, the indicators of the renew-
able emergy fraction are consistent for the farming systems with
organic claims, varying from 0.29 to 0.30, while that of the con-
ventional scaled rearing system is only 0.16. In the long term, as
well as in the presence of fluctuations of price and availability of
fossil fuels and derived products such as feed, production systems
with a higher percentage of renewable emergy are likely to be more
sustainable and to prevail. They are more likely to be successful in
economic competition when non-renewable resources are limited
than those using a high amount of non-renewable resources (Lefroy
and Rydberg, 2003).
The EYR is a measure of a process’s ability to use both local
renewable and non-renewable when matched with the investment
of economic resources from outside. In other words, the higher the
EYR, the less the use of external inputs for a given output, i.e., free
sources of emergy make a higher contribution to the output of the
process (Zhang et al., 2011). It is evident that the EYR value of the
conventional scaled farming system is the lowest among the four
systems, i.e., 1.19 (see Table 3), which indicates that such a produc-
tion process primarily converts resources from outside sources into
a product, without having such contribution from local resources.
The EYRs of the two Chinese systems show values of 1.43 and 1.48,
indicating a higher reliance on free environmental inputs. A sys-
tem can be efficient in converting the available resources, but this
has nothing to do with its ability to exploit what is freely avail-
able locally (Zhang et al., 2011), which further confirms the need
for more than one emergy indicator to provide a comprehensive
picture of investigated processes. In fact, compared with indus-
trialized agriculture systems, traditional farming systems have a
good capability to exploit local free resources but usually with low
production efficiency and vice versa.
With regard to ELR, the values of the two systems under study
are 2.34 and 2.28, respectively. According to Brown and Ulgiati
(2004), ELR values lower than two are indicative of moderate envi-
ronmental impact while an ELR values higher than 10 indicate
much higher environmental impact. In this sense, the three organic
production systems are near an acceptable equilibrium with the
local environment. However, the ELR value calculated for the scaled
production system is much higher (ELR = 5.21), indicating a more
intensive non-renewable emergy input and higher environmen-
tal stress. The ELR is directly related to the fraction of renewable
 L.-X. Zhang et al. / Ecological Engineering 54 (2013) 128–135
resources, and can be considered a measure of ecosystem stress due
to production (Ulgiati and Brown, 1998). Such a stress is not neces-
sarily local, but may refer also to more distant resources. In light of
ELR, the two (so-called) organic systems have achieved progress in
environmental performance when compared to the conventional
scaled rearing system of Italy. However, further improvements are
still necessary for future processes, as the impacts are still higher
than those of the grass organic rearing system in Italy.
The EER is a measure of the relative advantage of one part-
ner over the other, providing a measure of who “wins” and who
“loses” in the economic trade (Lu et al., 2006; Lu and Campbell,
2009). In general, when the comparison is performed in money
terms (exchange of money related to an exchange of goods) such a
ratio – named “terms of trade” – is more or less equal to 1, because
no individuals or countries can spend money in a purchase with-
out also receiving money for a sale. Instead, when emergy is used
as the accounting method, the hidden value of resources comes
into play. The calculated EERs for the backyard poultry rearing sys-
tem and orchard rearing system were 2.43 and 4.05, respectively,
indicating that they receive more emergy from the consumer than
they provide in exchange – or, in other words, they receive more
emergy than they have used to make their products. Comparatively
speaking, the orchard poultry rearing system benefits more than
the backyard rearing system in the production models with organic
claim.
ESI is the ratio of EYR to ELR, measuring the potential contribu-
tion of a resource or a process per unit of environmental loading
(Brown and Ulgiati, 2004). ESI within the scope between 1 and 10
means a living and good potential system, and when ESI is smaller
than 1, it indicates a system that is depleting production with high
environmental pressure (Ulgiati and Brown, 1998). In fact, the ESI
values of the four systems are all below 1, from 0.23 (conventional
scaled farming system in Italy) to 0.74 (grass rearing system in
Italy), indicating that they are all resource-depleting unsustainable
systems. Again, the two systems studied in China fall between the
Italian systems on the spectrum, a fact that illustrates that the nat-
ural or semi-natural production systems of China actually provide
a much larger return per unit of environmental loading generated
when compared to the commercial scaled rearing system of Italy.
However, in a broad context, the two poultry farming systems in
our study have a relatively poor performance with regard to over-
all sustainability, despite being comparable to organic production
practices when considering details such as the rearing space for
exercise and feeding patterns.
Although the emergy/exergy ratio (Em Ex R) can be considered
an aggregated measure of complexity, internal thermodynamic
efficiency and environmental sustainability, it is a slightly more
complex question for agro-ecosystems, since they are more indus-
trialized than nature ecosystems. Therefore, the backyard rearing
system and conventional scaled rearing system has a relative higher
Em Ex R values because their entire productions are more concen-
trated on chickens and the artificial utilization of emergy resource
is relatively very low. On the contrary, the orchard rearing sys-
tem has a lowest Em Ex R value for two reasons: natural availability
of resources and high conversion efficiency. Therefore, again, it
is recommendable to apply several indices simultaneously to get
a proper picture of the extent of integration, the maturity and
perhaps also the sustainability of agricultural systems (Jørgensen,
2006).
3.3. Extended discussions
From the accounting results and indicator comparisons, we can
form several pictures as follows: (1) the two poultry farming sys-
tems with organic claims in China use no antibiotics or chemicals,
133
but they still have a relatively high environmental loading ratio
and poor environmental sustainability (ESIs < 1); (2) production
efficiency is relatively low, due to the operation on a small scale
and extensive model; (3) it should be emphasized that the indirect
costs, other than facilities and feed cost, are also large for organic
production, such as time, land and labor, which may be the real
obstacle to this industry; (4) from the perspective of emergy, farm-
ers could benefit from such organic production practices, though
not strictly certified.
From the perspective of emergy-based indicators, the organic
poultry practices in China have achieved a favorable improvement,
compared to the conventional scaled production model, but still
suffer from a relatively low renewable emergy fraction, due to
large inputs of purchased feed and building facilities. It demon-
strates the fact that the current organic farming practices near
mega-cities bear a resemblance to intensive production by high
energy resource investments. This relatively “intensive” organic
production makes the birds rely more on outside feed than on for-
age from the field. Economic efficiency, after all, is the central goal
of farmers involved. For the backyard poultry model, the density of
animals in the same area creates a problem of excessive nitrogen
and phosphorus concentration. Theoretically, this problem could
be resolved in two ways: to decrease the use of corn to force the
utilization of natural biomass as grass or fruits and to use more
local wood and stones for the bird’s housing and fencing. In con-
sideration of these points, raising poultry in orchards, tea gardens
and forests can be a good alternative choice in suburban areas of
China.
In addition to environmental performance, consideration of
the efficiency of technological and economic systems has been,
and still is, a crucial aspect for the understanding of progress
toward more sustainable production and consumption. As men-
tioned above, the two Chinese poultry production systems suffer
from relatively lower production efficiency in terms of transfor-
mity comparisons, due to their operation at the household scale and
the extensive management required. It is worth noting that rural
China is characterized and managed by the Household Responsi-
bility System (HRS), i.e., all the agricultural production activities,
including organic food production, in China are mainly engaged in
by household units. This unique organizational structure limits the
effective implementation of substantial and practical organic tech-
nology, farmer training and the advantage of scale effects. In fact,
there is not much support from the government to help the farmer
develop organic farming on a household scale. The Chinese gov-
ernment is facing huge problems in food security and is trying its
best to ensure food production by encouraging chemical inputs and
controlling the scale of production. So far, there is no evidence that
organic agriculture will not reduce food production. On the con-
trary, some researchers argue that, even for organic poultry meat,
the cost of production is much higher than in conventional rearing
(Castellini et al., 2006). If we consider the efficiency from a broader
viewpoint, the efficiency is much lower, since organic production
also needs more land, more time and more labor input, which lim-
its its sustainability if land for food production and energy crops
is scarce and if there is a possibility of a potential famine. In our
case, although we think the orchard poultry rearing model is a
favorable choice with regard to its better performance, not every
farmer will have access to forest land and necessary investment
capital.
The EER results show that the backyard poultry rearing sys-
tem and orchard rearing system receive more emergy from the
consumer than they provide in exchange. Owners using these two
farming systems can obtain three times the normal price for their
chickens and eggs, because more local residents are willing to pay
a premium to have free range chickens free from antibiotics and
134 L.-X. Zhang et al. / Ecological Engineering 54 (2013) 128–135
chemicals. We should pay attention to the fact that these two
poultry rearing systems are not strictly certified. It is worth not-
ing that most of the organic products sold in domestic markets are
certified by COFCC (China Organic Food Certification Center) and
OFDC (Organic Food Development Center). However, some of the
organic products are marked with a high price may not be real
organic products, and there are some reports confirming this. The
key reason for the incorrect labeling of the organic products is the
loose certification supervision system in China. Therefore, the pro-
duction models, as in our case, prevail in China, especially in the
suburban areas of mega-cities. The production is aimed at, and rec-
ognized by, the local market, not by label, which stimulates the
activity driving the purchase, i.e., the consumers drive to the farms
and purchase live birds on-site. Therefore, the Chinese government
should regain consumers’ confidence by introducing stricter rules
and regulations, focusing on production management, supervision,
and supervising the certification body.
4. Conclusions
This paper presents an emergy analysis of two family-scale
poultry farming systems with organic claims in the suburbs of
Beijing, i.e., a backyard rearing system and an orchard rearing sys-
tem, as well as providing comparative analysis with two other
poultry rearing systems in Italy, i.e., grass organic rearing sys-
tem and conventional scaled rearing system. Several concrete
conclusions and some deductions drawn from this study are as
follows:
(1) From the perspective of emergy-based indicators, the organic
poultry practices in China have achieved a favorable improve-
ment, compared to the conventional scaled production model,
but still suffered from a relatively poor performance with ESI
below 1, despite the fact they have curbed the use of antibiotics
and chemicals, while trying to increase free range for chickens.
(2) In light of the potential for decreasing environmental pressure,
enhancing ecological complexity (indicated by Em Ex R) and
increasing overall sustainability, raising poultry in orchards, tea
gardens and forests can be a good alternative choice in subur-
ban areas of China.
(3) The case analysis in this study outlines challenges faced by Chi-
nese organic farming practices emanating from multiple-levels,
such as conflicts with food safety strategy, confinement to small
scale operation, lack of knowledge about best production prac-
tices and a bad reputation with the credit system. Therefore,
further improvement in production techniques and institu-
tional reforms associated with organic production systems are
necessary in the future.
(4) Although decreasing the environmental impacts derived from
production activities is advocated by the framework of the
world organic farming organizations, exactly how to quan-
tity this reduced impact in a holistic way remains unclear.
The emergy accounting method was proved to be a useful
tool to quantity and compare the environmental perfor-
mance of different organic production practices, and can
provide practical indicators for organic farming assessment and
certification.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Key Technology R&D Pro-
gram of China (Grant No. 2012BAC13B01). The authors gratefully
acknowledge two anonymous reviewers for their highly valuable
and constructive comments and suggestions.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be
found, in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.
2013.01.030.
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