Study details egg industry’s declining environmental impact

by SUSAN MANN

The Canadian egg industry has improved productivity in tandem with reducing its environmental impact over the past 50 years, according to a recent Egg Farmers of Canada study.

“The study is helping to demonstrate that gains in productivity and environmental improvements can go hand-in-hand,” notes Alison Evans, Egg Farmers of Canada corporate and public affairs director. “I think some people tend to think that they’re mutually exclusive. This is a shining example where both things have been accomplished at the same time.”

The study, sponsored by Egg Farmers and done by British Columbia-based Global Ecologic Environmental Consulting and Management Services found the egg supply chain’s impact on the environment was cut by 50 per cent from 1962 to 2012, according to a June 20 Egg Farmers press release. At the same time, egg production increased by more than 50 per cent from 1962 to 2012.

The study’s author is Nathan Pelletier, owner of Global Ecologic and Environmental Consulting and Management Services, which provides environmental consulting and management services.

Evans says the study provides an industry benchmark. Egg Farmers is continuing its relationship with Pelletier so “he can help shape, in the future, what we do with this sort of benchmark in terms of pushing our industry toward even greater environmental successes.”

The Egg Farmers release notes the environmental impacts of egg production in conventional housing systems from pullet production to farm gate is one-third of the estimated impacts of the industry in 1962.

“The egg sectors’ overall environmental impact actually decreased in all emissions and resource use” areas, Egg Farmers CEO Tim Lambert says in the release.

Those egg production supply chain emissions reductions from 1962 to 2012 include:

• A 61 per cent cut in acid rain and acidic dust emissions. Pelletier says some factors leading to the decrease include changes in layer or pullet facilities at the farm level, improved production of feed used in layer or pullet operations, changes in energy production, increased efficiencies in transportation and fertilizer production. Furthermore, there’s much higher feed conversion efficiency in contemporary egg production compared to 1962.  What that means is takes a lot less feed to produce the same amount of eggs compared to 50 years ago, he says. “There’s also a much lower rate of manure production.”
• A 68 per cent decrease in eutrophying emissions. These are emissions of nitrogen and phosphorus-based compounds into water, Pelletier says. The emissions stimulate bacteria and algae production in water that depletes oxygen in the water, making it “less hospitable to other life forms,” he explains. A variety of changes along the supply chain led to the cut in eutrophying emissions, including higher efficiencies in egg production and cuts in fertilizer levels applied to field crops “relative to the yield of those crops,” he says. Nitrogen fertilizer use per tonne of corn produced in Ontario has declined by 44 per cent from 1962 to 2012, and corn yields have almost doubled during that same timeframe, he notes.
• A 72 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This reduction is partly linked to more efficient transportation used in the supply chain now compared to 50 years ago and more efficient fertilizer production.

The study also found the supply chain cut its life cycle use of energy (by 41 per cent), land (by 81 per cent) and water (by 69 per cent).

Genetic improvements have led to more efficient egg-laying hens, and improved barn management among farmers has led to lower bird mortality rates. In 2012, mortality rates in Canadian pullet and layer operations were 63 per cent lower compared to 1962, Pelletier says.

Farmers’ husbandry practices are also contributing to the sector’s reduction in its environmental footprint.

Pelletier says “egg production technologies are so much more dialed in now than they were 50 years ago in terms of what feed composition is going to be appropriate to the hen at different stages through the laying cycle.” BF