Feeding Swill to Pigs May Save Fast Swathes of Forest and Savanna

Feeding food waste to pigs may actually save vast swathes of forest and savanna. A new study reveals that if the European Union lifted the pigswill ban and harnessed technology for heat-treating food waste, about 1.8 million hectares of land could be saved from being stripped for big feed production.

Swill-feeding was banned across the EU in 2002 following the foot-and-mouth outbreak, which was triggered by a UK farmer illegally feeding uncooked food waste to pigs. Since then, though, other countries have created a highly-regulated system for safely recycling heat-treated food waste as animal feed.

Swill is a feed which is commonly used in other parts of the world. In fact, using it in the EU could save a huge amount of global resources and provide an environmentally sound recycling solution to the estimated 102.5 million tons of food wasted in the EU each year. Over 35 percent of food waste is now recycled into animal feed in Japan, where swill-fed "Eco-pork" is marketed as a premium product.

"Following the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, different countries looked at the same situation, the same evidence, and came to opposite conclusions for policy," said Erasmus zu Ermgassen, the lead researcher of the new study, in a news release. "In many countries in East Asia we have a working model for the safe use of food waste as pig feed. It is a highly regulated and closely monitored system that recycles food waste and produces low-cost pig feed with a low environmental impact."

About 21.5 million tons of pork are produced in the EU each year. Livestock production occupies about 75 percent of agricultural land worldwide, and most of this is used to produce animal feed. For EU pork, farming for soybean meal for pigs takes up in excess of 1.2 million hectares of land across South America. Since swill is much cheaper than grain and soybean-based pig feed, costs could lower by as much as 50 percent for EU pig farmers.

"The reintroduction of swill feeding in the EU would require backing from pig producers, the public, and policy makers, but it has substantial potential to improve the environmental and economic sustainability of EU pork production," said zu Ermgassen in a news release. "It is time to reassess whether the EU's blanket ban on the use of food waste as feed is the right thing for the pig industry."

The findings are published in the journal Food Policy.

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