Effect of origin and composition of diet on ecological impact of the organic egg production chain S.E.M. Dekker a,n , I.J.M. de Boer b , M. van Krimpen c , A.J.A. Aarnink c , P.W.G. Groot Koerkamp a,c a Farm Technology Group, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 17, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands b Animal Production Systems Group, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 338, 6700 AH, Wageningen, The Netherlands c Wageningen UR Livestock Research, P.O. Box 65, 8200 AB, Lelystad, The Netherlands article info Article history: Received 23 December 2011 Received in revised form 12 November 2012 Accepted 18 November 2012 Keywords: Sustainability Diet ingredient Feed conversion ratio Ecological impact Life cycle assessment Regional production abstract The objective of this research was to assess the potential to reduce the integral ecological impact (i.e. impact along the egg production chain per kg egg) of Dutch organic egg production by replacing currently used imported diet ingredients with Dutch diet ingredients. We realized this objective by comparing the life cycle assessments (LCA) of current Dutch organic egg production, i.e. base situation (B) with different scenarios. In each scenario, one imported diet ingredient was replaced with a diet ingredient produced in the Netherlands. Finally, we formulated a scenario in which several ingredients, that individually resulted in the lowest mean change in ecological impact along the organic egg production chain, were replaced simultaneously. We included differences between production chains in cultivation (i.e. field operation, manure application and yield), transport, feed intake, egg production and N excretion. Replacement of Ukrainian wheat with Dutch triticale, and of Brazilian soybeans, Italian sunflower seed expeller and German peas with Dutch rapeseed expeller reduced the integral ecological impact compared with current organic egg production. Simulta- neous replacement of these ingredients (scenario MU) resulted in an overall lower and more balanced reduction of the different ecological impacts (41–101%) than single replacement of these ingredients (41–215%). Compared with B ecological impact of scenario MU decreased for global warming potential (91%), energy use (79%), land occupation (68%), acidification potential (99%), N deficit (85%), P deficit (41%) and P surplus (81%), but slightly increased for N surplus (101%). The low ecological impact of MU was explained by (1) a relative small increase in feed conversion ratio (from 2.32 for B to 2.37 for MU), (2) a reduction of the transport distance of 44.4% of the diet ingredients, (3) replacement of the currently used crops with crops that have a higher yield in combination with a balanced applied amount of N and P in manure, and (4) use of expeller instead of whole ingredients. & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction European Union legislation states that organic farming should combine best environmental practices (EC, 1999) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements states that the principle of ecology; i.e. organic agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, work with them, emulate them and help sustain them; is one of the basic principles of organic farming (Luttikholt, 2007). This implies that organic egg Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/livsci Livestock Science 1871-1413/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2012.11.013 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ31 317483320; fax: þ31 317484819. E-mail addresses: sanne.dekker@wur.nl, sanne_dekker_99@hotmail.com (S.E.M. Dekker), imke.deboer@wur.nl (I.J.M. de Boer), marinus.vankrimpen@wur.nl (M. van Krimpen), andre.aarnink@wur.nl (A.J.A. Aarnink), peter.grootkoerkamp@wur.nl (P.W.G. Groot Koerkamp). Livestock Science ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] Please cite this article as: Dekker, S.E.M., et al., Effect of origin and composition of diet on ecological impact of the organic egg production chain. Livestock Science (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2012.11.013