Sustainability in Swine Fattening Farming Systems in Italy: Looking Beyond Greenhouse Gas Emissions with the Ecological Footprint

The study addresses the assessment of environmental sustainability in agriculture, noting that the existing scientific literature has predominantly focused on negative environmental impacts, particularly greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector. It argues that a comprehensive evaluation of farming systems should go beyond impact-based metrics and instead compare the demand and supply of natural capital, using appropriate methodologies such as the ecological footprint (EF). Accordingly, the objective of the study is to analyze the environmental sustainability of fattening pig farming systems in Italy by applying the EF to compare a virtuous case-study farm (located in Umbria, 72.4 ha of utilized agricultural area, and 1960 pigs per year) with a representative sample of ninety-four specialized pig-fattening farms drawn from the Italian FADN 2023 database. The results show the following marked differences between the two systems: the case study exhibits a positive ecological balance (EB = +50.1 gha; IEP = +0.69 gha/ha), while the FADN sample displays, on average, a negative ecological balance (EB = −167.6 gha) and a strongly negative sustainability index (IEP = −3.84 gha/ha). These findings indicate that, in a sector characterized by generalized environmental unsustainability, the preservation of natural capital can be achieved not only through low-impact technical solutions, but also by addressing structural factors (e.g., livestock density per unit area and the presence of non-productive land uses). Overall, the study demonstrates that sustainability assessment requires explicitly comparing natural capital demand and supply, rather than merely quantifying emissions.