Halving Greenhouse Gas Emissions from China’s Pork Supply Chain Under Food System Transformation

The intensification of pig production and the restructuring of pork supply-demand patterns have profoundly reshaped greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the pork supply chain. Understanding the environmental consequences of these food system transitions is essential for developing effective mitigation strategies. Focusing on technological and spatial transformations between 2002 and 2022, this study employed linear programming and life cycle assessment (LCA) to systematically quantify GHG emissions from China’s pork supply system, applied the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index to decompose the key drivers of emission changes, and conducted scenario analysis to assess mitigation potential by 2030. The results show that geographic shifts in pork production and consumption increased interprovincial food miles and associated transport emissions. With the intensification of pig production, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions surpassed methane (CH4) to become the second-largest GHG source, driven primarily by greater reliance on commercial feed, synthetic fertilizers, and fossil energy inputs. Although the transition from smallholder to intensive production systems exerted a mitigation effect, this was outweighed by a substantially larger increase in emission intensities across all production systems. Between 2002 and 2022, total emissions rose by 110.1%, reaching 164.05 Mt CO2eq. A full-chain optimization strategy integrating low-opportunity-cost feed substitution, enhanced manure recycling, biogas production, and green transportation could reduce emissions by 49.1% by 2030 while enabling an 8.2% increase in pork output. This work not only reveals the evolving emission structure of China’s pork supply system but also identifies critical pathways for the low-carbon transformation of livestock systems globally.