Sustainability of specialized and mixed farm systems taking risk into account

Abstract

In this paper we use the case study of Flemish pig farms to decompose the complex sustainability discussion into a reflection about the role of farm systems and the role of uncertainty and the implications for a sustainability assessment. A literature overview gives an insight in the ongoing scientific discussion about how to move towards a more sustainable pig production and the favored farm system. Based on the literature about the strong connection with the external input use, for example soy, and the sustainability of pig farms, we included the concentrate use in the assessment. A second problem, which will be especially tackled in this paper is the fact that the variability in space and time of sustainability performance can lead to results that are very time and situation dependent. If this aspect of uncertainty is not taken into account during a sustainability performance assessment, it can result in misleading results. Figge and Hahn (2007) proposed a new method to include aspects of risk in the sustainability assessment. This method will be used to compare specialized and mixed pig production systems, including external inputs in the assessment.