Integrated analysis on economic and environmental consequences of livestock husbandry on different scale in China

Livestock husbandry in China is rapidly changing in structure from traditional backyard rearing toward large-scale and intensive production. In this study, a joint use of life cycle assessment, emergy evaluation and economic analysis provides different but complementary standpoints for comparison of four typical pig production models. The results show that the income/cost ratio, labor productivity and daily weight gain for specialized pig farms (SF), thousand pig farms (TF) and hundred thousand pig farms (HTF) are increased by 23.0–36.5%, by 338.7–946.7% and by 2.0–9.8%, respectively, compared to the backyard pig farm (BF). However, the area-based and yield-based potential environmental impacts for the SF, TF and HTF increase by 975.0–9121.9% and by 19.5–43.5%, respectively, compared to the BF. Meanwhile, the emergy-based sustainability of the SF, TF and HTF is 56.5–88.7% lower than that of the BF, whereas the use efficiency of non-renewable resources of the SF increased 17.6–50.4% compared to the BF, TF and HTF. Generally, the larger production scale causes better economic benefits and worse environmental consequences. Nevertheless, to some extent, expanding the scale of livestock production is necessary for the current development of the livestock sector in China. However, the scale must be moderated to avoid serious environmental impacts. In this study, the specialized farm is suggested to be a good choice for livestock production in China. Moreover, policymakers should promote moderate-scale farms to adopt advanced and integrated production practices for livestock husbandry. This will effectively improve the economic and environmental performance of livestock production in China.