Abstract
The present study aimed to evaluate the environmental cost of the production process of broilers from the approach of emergy accounting and carbon sequestration potential for broiler farms. The study assessed a standard farm of the conventional system containing ten houses in 19 ha. We evaluated the following indices solar transformity (Tr), renewability (%R), emergy yield ratio (EYR), emergy investment ratio (EIR), environmental loading ratio (ELR), emergy sustainability index (ESI), and emergy exchange ratio (EER) and carbon sequestration potential of eucalyptus plantation. The total emergy input was 2.79E-06 seJ ha−1 y−1 for the broiler growth process. The highest investment in the production process was related to materials, which came from feeding and electricity. The renewability index indicated the low sustainability of the system with increased consumption of economical materials and equipment, with a low proportion of the emergy use of renewable resources. High investment in broilers production in the conventional system generates an environmental loading ratio that indicates high environmental degradation. Planting trees in the surrounding areas of the farm facilities can minimize the externalities of the production system with the plantation carbon sequestration potential.
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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001 and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. NDdSL: Conceptualization, methodology, data collection, and analysis were performed, and writing-original draft. IdAN: Writing-reviewing, editing, and supervision. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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da Silva Lima, N.D., de Alencar Nääs, I. The environmental cost of broiler production and carbon sequestration potential of eucalyptus plantations around farms in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 43955–43965 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19005-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19005-4