Resource use and improvement strategy analysis of the livestock and feed production supply chain in Thailand

Journal article

Authors/Editors

Strategic Research Themes

Publication Details

Author list: Khonpikul S., Jakrawatana N., Sangkaew P., Gheewala S.H.

Publisher: Springer

Publication year: 2017

Journal: International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (0948-3349)

Volume number: 22

Issue number: 11

Start page: 1692

End page: 1704

Number of pages: 13

ISSN: 0948-3349

eISSN: 1614-7502

URL: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85024501054&doi=10.1007%2fs11367-017-1361-4&partnerID=40&md5=60499452406f5d5b41521450dd986d7b

Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)

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Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this research is to reveal the overall money flows and physical flows of the livestock and feed production supply chain in Thailand in order to analyze the resource use and cost and assess material use efficiency of the whole supply chain. Another aim is to evaluate the options to improve and evaluate trade-off between economic and environmental performance. Methods: This research conducted material and monetary flow modeling using material flow analysis (MFA) and input output analysis (IOA). Data collected from the Thai Input-Output Tables 2005 were employed to develop the monetary flow model. Direct and indirect resource consumption (energy, water, and land use) and turnover along the supply chain were assessed using environmentally extended input-output analysis model (EEIOA). Scenario analysis with improvement options was applied to the model to evaluate the effectiveness of the improvement options. Results and discussion: One third of energy and water consumption were from the animal farm itself. The rest were from feed production and upstream raw material production. Land use in the system was mainly from maize and paddy field. Feed conversion ratio improvement should play an important role in the strategy for resource efficiency and reduce environmental impact in the whole supply chain. Energy intensity reduction, the best option in overall energy reduction, is the policy that the government is pushing to be implemented in all sectors, and it can also easily be applied along with the other options. Therefore, it should be applied with the other options for improvement. Conclusions: The results from monetary flow and physical material flow can visually show the holistic view of the Thai livestock production supply chain quantitatively and allow the stakeholders to understand the economic structure of the supply chain system. This can enable the decision makers to analyze the interrelation effect and impact of changing one sector demand or changing resource efficiency to impact other sectors in the system. ฉ 2017, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.

Keywords

Economically extended input output analysis, Economically extended material flow analysis, Livestock and feed supply chain, Material use efficiency