Sustainable statistics, delivering authentic outcomes in an increasingly sensitive world Jane Jordan reports
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erd recording and pig business analysis is changing, and it has to if pigmeat production is to meet the challenges of climate change and increasingly judicious consumerism. Further globalisation, with growing pressure to be more sustainable, is forcing livestock businesses to re-evaluate key performance indicators and question the effectiveness of current benchmark statistics. Productivity measurements, such as pigs weaned/sow/year, tonne of feed/kg gain, are relevant but no longer satisfy modern production perspectives because supply chains, consumers and political strategists want more meaningful data. They want figures that quantify environmental impact and the ethical value their choices bring to the wider community. They want to know what a food product offers them, in terms of the
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resources used to bring it to market, the carbon footprint it leaves behind and that it meets their expectations for eating quality, health benefits and value for money. Lifecycle econometrics embrace wider production perspectives and can go some way to satisfying these new demands. These measurements offer a clearer definition of production performance and how it really stacks up against available resources, such as the genetic capability of a herd, the nutrition supplied, the skills/labour available, the equipment/facilities used and the re-investment a business can afford to plough back in. Jesper Toft, agri-business and data/IT consultant with WinOpti, AgroVision’s feed optimisation programme, is a keen advocate of Life Cycle Assessment. He says it offers a more
