The transition to a low carbon society and a circular economy require action also in agriculture. The environmental footprint of food depends also on the production methods. Over the decades, modern animal husbandry has substantially reduced the carbon footprint of food of animal origin. Achieving environmental standards in animal husbandry requires: improved productivity, housing conditions, and animal health, as well as the use of nutrition that minimizes emissions. Options for reducing the environmental burden of nutrition include: accurate meeting of animal requirements, improved production parameters, use of feed additives, good feeding equipment, and the use of feed materials with a small environmental footprint. In pigs, the greatest improvement has been achieved in the reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions. Feed with reduced protein and phosphorus content, using amino acids and phytase, can reduce their secretion by more than 50 %. By accurate meeting of animal requirements in all stages of growth and of reproductive cycle, by the use of multiphase feeding and feed additives, a further reduction of nutrient excretion and of the need for high-carbon footprint protein feeds and phosphates can be achieved.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4329096
Information is presented on the current legal requirements related to the emission of ammonia and greenhouse gases from animal housing in 21 EU and 5 non-EU countries. Overall, the review shows that most of the included countries have implemented procedures to limit ammonia emissions, but there are no requirements to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The review shows that the major livestock producing countries have implemented EU requirements and that only a few countries with large pig populations have implemented requirements that are more stringent than those required by the EU. This is a unique review of the situation that has gained nearly 900 reads in Research Gate since June 2019.
COBISS.SI-ID: 5785960
The world is facing major problems with increasing numbers of people, increasing needs for food production and global warming. All three problems are inseparably linked. Diet has a strong carbon footprint, as quarter of greenhouse gases originate from food chain. In addition, the growing local and global problem is that one third of the food produced in the world gets lost or wasted. The carbon footprint of foods varies significantly due to differences in production, processing, storage, transport, etc.; and is the highest in animal-based foods, but smaller in plant-based foods. Because of the growing world population and climate change, while at the same time limited natural resources, we will need to improve the food chain and our dietary habits. Dietary habits are often unhealthy also due to an excessive intake of foods with high carbon footprints, thus efforts for healthy and sustainable nutrition are intertwined in some respects. Some suggest that a solution lies in an even greater dietary share of plant foods. However, such one-sided, less varied diet could be detrimental for health, as it usually leads to the deficient intake of many nutrients; that can be seen under such dietary habits even in developed countries. In addition, in some parts of the world, there are no other options for producing nutrient rich foods, as with animal husbandry. Slovenia is also the case with 60 % of the grasslands from all agricultural land, which represent only a quarter of the Slovenian territory. The transition to almost exclusive plant nutrition is neither a nutritional nor an environmental alternative. For the health of the human and planet the improved technologies and managements in the food chain are needed to develop sustainable diets with low environmental impacts that are nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy, protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems. At the same time they have to be culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; while optimizing natural and human resources.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4328584
The paper presents nutritional factors affecting urea content in milk and describes the consequences of inadequate crude protein concentration in ruminant diets. A review of expert recommendations and scientific articles for milk urea in dairy sheep and goats is presented. Based on the literature, the most appropriate values for urea in goat milk (20-40 mg per 100 ml) were confirmed and corrected values for sheep (30-45 mg per 100 ml) were proposed. Literature data on urea content in milk of dairy sheep and goats in Slovenia are also presented.
COBISS.SI-ID: 5912680
Agronomic practices have a significant impact on soil organic carbon stocks. Soils from long-term experiments in Jablje and Rakičan were sampled in 2020 to evaluate the long-term effects of organic fertilisation treatments (control, farmyard manure, incorporation of plant biomass) and mineral N (control, N1, N2 and N3 rates) on soil organic carbon stocks. The results show an increase in carbon stocks with farmyard manure and incorporation of plant biomass after 26 years of experimentation. On average, carbon stocks in the top 25 cm of soil increased by 13.8 t/ha (0.53 t/ha per year) in Rakičan and by 4.7 t/ha (0.18 t/ha per year) in Jablje. Incorporation of plant biomass increased organic carbon stock by 7.7 t/ha (0.34 t/ha per year) in Rakičan and by 3.2 t/ha (0.12 t/ha per year) in Jablje. The agronomic practice of removing plant biomass without adding manure reduced soil organic carbon stocks in Jablje (by 3.0 t/ha or 0.10 t/ha per year). The effect of additional nitrogen from mineral fertilizers on soil carbon stocks was pronounced only in Rakičan in treatments with incorporation of crop residues. Both sites differed significantly in soil organic carbon stocks and in the rate of their increase.
COBISS.SI-ID: 48903171