The Scottish Pig Industry Leadership Group (SPILG) report, Bringing home the bacon: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the Scottish pork sector, focuses on five key areas to reduce the GHG emissions from the Scottish pork industry without sacrificing output, quality or affordability. The Scottish Govt has laid out urgent and ambitious targets to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030. This is a challenging target for the sector to meet given the ongoing economic shocks from COVID-19 and threats from African swine fever.

The report’s authors say that improving efficiency, adopting new technology and managing livestock disease are key starting points. They also suggest turning pig wastes into a fuel resource and adding value to finished pig meat products as crucial for the industry’s stability.

“As an unsupported sector historically, there has always been a drive to adopt new practices and learnings,” the SPILG report says. It goes on to say that releasing their recommendations publicly will help maintain the positive momentum around emissions reductions.

Click here to read the full report.