SUSTAINABLE LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON SWINE NUTRITION, FEED SAFETY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

An overhaul of the current agri-food chain to ensure food security, overcome environmental burdens, enhance resource regeneration and utilization efficiency, as well as improve overall sustainability is required. This is a consequence of several and complex interactions among different sectors in the agri-food system at a global level. For instance, increasing world population, urbanization, and demand for animal products but limited natural resources create pressure on the planetary boundaries. Therefore, we focus on two topics as promising solutions to transform the production system from linear to circular and to alleviate environmental impacts from pig husbandry due to waste and nutrient leakage: i) re-introducing energy and nutrients from foodstuffs with no human market values but with adequate safety standards, the former foodstuff products (FFPs); ii) optimizing the diet formulation of pigs considering nutrient, particularly nitrogen and phosphorous, concentrations and origins of the feed ingredients. The first part of the first topic of this thesis aims to disseminate a more comprehensive understanding of FFPs by exploring their potential as alternative and circular feed ingredients to partially replace conventional cereal grains in swine and ruminant nutrition. We discuss about the feed safety, nutritional values, regulatory aspects, and animal performance. After this, we noticed that the safety quality of FFPs regarding physical contamination should be further examined to fill the knowledge gap so as to develop standardized and reliable procedures to process various FFPs at an industry level under clear legislative control. Therefore, the second part of the first topic aims to determine the size and shape attributes of packaging remnants detect in FFPs considering three frequently identified packaging materials, aluminium, cellulose/polysaccharides, and plastics. We observed that aluminium remnants were more in consistence regarding their size and shape, compared to the ones made by the other two types of materials, and that the size and shape attributes of FFP packaging remnants were not enough separated to make classification rules. The second topic aims to use local protein source and amino acid supplementation to substitute imported soybean meal and to remove the addition of mineral phosphate while simultaneously reducing dietary protein and phosphorous contents in growing-finishing pig’s diets. We found that such nutritional strategies did not negatively affect animal growth but decrease nitrogen and phosphorous excreted by pigs, which helps attenuate the pressure of nitrogen and phosphorous pollution.