How environmentally (un)sustainable is organic pig production? The Dutch case

Sustainable agriculture is considered as an appropriate alternative to what some would see as the more environmentally harmful conventional agriculture. Among the existing options within sustainable agriculture, organic farming is probably the most widely adopted. Certification of organic products aims to guarantee that organic agriculture rules are satisfied. However, certification does not always relate to sustainable practices. The present work uses database analysis to obtain a general picture of organic pig production in The Netherlands in terms of environmental sustainability. To do so the nitrogen pollution potential and other parameters of the system are evaluated. Farms were divided into four production types: grazing, mixed-vegetable, mixed-husbandry and swine (i.e. pigs). The results presented here reveal that 72% of the farms do not adjust the number of animals to the farm size. Consequently, the production of nitrogen often surpasses the limit stated by the EU (170 kg N ha−1 y−1). In general, swinetype farms have smaller farm sizes and are among the most polluting ones. These farms cannot be considered as a land-related production, one of the premises for organic husbandry according to the EU regulation. This illustrates that the fulfilment of the law does not necessarily entail the implementation of organic principles. To address this dilemma, share-land agreements are proposed as an alternative to allow specialized farms to diversify production and support biological cycles within the agroecosystem that emerges from between-farm collaborations.Marta G. Rivera-Ferre is recipient of a postdoctoral grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education.Peer reviewe