Improved techniques in 2010 allowed one kilo of eggs to be produced releasing 71 per cent less greenhouse gases, 71 per cent less eutrophying emissions and 65 per cent less acidifying emissions than in 1960.

The team also found that the entire US egg sector, although producing 30 per cent more eggs than 50 years ago, is producing 63 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists have highlighted feed efficiency, feed composition and manure management as three key areas for the emissions drop.

The figures appear in a report published in Poultry Science undertaken by researchers the Egg Industry Centre (IEC) at Iowa University.

“The advances in the egg industry that this work revealed were, from an ecological perspective, really extraordinary,” said Dr Hongwei Xin of Iowa State University. “In essence, we found that the industry can produce a dozen eggs today with one-third or less of the environmental impact it had 50 years ago.”

Further Reading

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