LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 3, SESSION A: LABELLING, CONSUMERS, DIET 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
784
86. Environmental impacts and resource use in feed production for
Atlantic salmon aquaculture
Erik Skontorp Hognes 1,* , Friederike Ziegler 2 , Veronica Sund 2
1 SINTEF Fisheries and aquaculture, Norway, 2 SIK- the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology,
Sweden, Corresponding author. E-mail: erik.hognes@sintef.no
As a part of the development of salmon feeds with reduced content of fish meal and fish oil the occupation of
agricultural land; marine primary-production-required; GHG emissions and cumulative energy demand was
assessed for a set of different feed diets for Atlantic salmon. The assessments were performed with LCA
methodology and covered the salmon production system from growing and catch of feed ingredients till the
salmon was ready for slaughter. The results were compared with Swedish chicken and pig production. Data
on the feed compositions was delivered by the three of the world's largest salmon feed producers.
LCAs of Norwegian seafood have mainly focused on potential climate impact and cumulative energy demand
(Winthur et al., 2009). This project expanded the scope of environmental impacts by addressing the
reliance on agricultural land and marine resources (Pelletier and Tydemers, 2007), the latter by including the
marine primary production required (PPR) to sustain the marine ingredients (Pauly and Christensen, 1995).
The PPR was calculated by combining the trophic level of each fish species with catch location and average
primary production per square meter ocean surface for that location. This method has important uncertainties
from deciding the tropic level of the species and the average primary production per surface area for each
fishing location.
A salmon that is fed the average Norwegian feed diet, in 2010, has a carbon footprint of 2.6 kg CO2 equivalents;
it occupies 3.3 m 2 agricultural land and requires 115 m 2 of sea primary-production area. Studying both
potential climate impact and primary production required made it possible to study trade-offs between them,
but also discover where there are no trade-offs. E.g. reducing the content of American marine ingredients
would increase both the carbon footprint and the PPR, since the American species, used in these feeds, have
a low trophic level and are sourced by very energy efficient fisheries.
Increasing or decreasing the use of marine ingredients may alter the carbon footprints by ± 7%. One reason
for this is that the marine ingredients are replaced with soy protein concentrate that is attributed with a high
carbon footprint since it contributes to deforestation. Deforestation has previously rarely been included in the
GHG assessment of salmon feed production.
The comparison with pig and chicken concluded that salmon has the lowest climate impact and occupies the
least agricultural land. Even an almost "vegetarian" salmon occupy less agricultural land than chicken. Pig
had the highest carbon footprint and the highest occupation of agricultural land.
Important parts of the current and future feeds are derived from by-products from fisheries (pelagic and
whitefish species) and from poultry by-products, The use of by-products highlighted the importance of the
allocation strategy, here mass allocation was used and thus the by-products contributed significantly to the
carbon footprint and this highlights the importance of evaluating how future standards for GHG assessments
should treat allocation requirements. This LCA study was part of a bigger project by Nofima Marin on the
resource utilisation and eco-efficiency of Norwegian salmon farming in 2010 (Ytrestøyl et al., 2011).
References
Pauly D, Christensen V. Primary production required to sustain global fisheries. Nature. 1995;374: 255-257.
[With erratum from 376: 279]
Pelletier N, Tyedmers P. Feeding farmed salmon: Is organic better? Aquaculture. 2007;272(1-4):399-416.
Winther U, Ziegler F, Skontorp Hognes E, Emanuelsson A, Sund V, Ellingsen H. Project report: Carbon
footprint and energy use of Norwegian seafood products www.sintef.no/Fiskeri-og-Havbruk-
AS/Prosjekter/2011/Miljoregnskap-og-klimasporing-av-sjomat/. Trondheim, Norway: SINTEF Fisheries
and aquaculture; 2009.
Ytrestøyl T, Aas TS, Berge GM, Hatlen B, Sørensen M, Ruyter B, et al. Resource utilisation and ecoefficiency
of Norwegian salmon farming in 2010 Norway: Nofima; 2011.