By increasing productivity and feed efficiency, genetic improvement has led to substantial reductions in the carbon footprint of pork production over the past decades. This review concludes that, other than continuing and accelerating genetic improvement for productivity and efficiency, opportunities to further enhance reductions in the carbon footprint of pork production through genetics are limited when based on traits that are currently routinely collected in breeding programs. However, there are opportunities to further accelerate the impact of genetics on the carbon footprint of pork production by 1) increasing emphasis on selection for resilience to disease and heat stress, 2) including traits in breeding programs that are directly related to methane emissions and the efficient use of individual nutrients, in particular nitrogen and phosphorus, 3) more closely tailoring diets to the inherent nutritional requirements of different genetic lines or, ideally, of individual pigs, and 4) introducing genetic modifications or gene edits that remove the adverse effects of anti-nutritional factors that many feedstuffs contain on productivity and efficiency of pigs.

Read the full article in the Journal of Animal Science.