Evaluation of Environmental Impacts in Turkey Production System in Iran

Poultry industry is an important production system due to providing remarkable portion of the human food and protein needs. Considering the necessity of environmental protection, the amount of environmental impacts of a turkey production unit in Iran was determined using life cycle assessment method. The required information were collected through questionnaires and interviews with farm owners. In this research, the system boundary was poultry farm gate and functional unit was considered as onetonne of turkey meat. The amount of indicators including abiotic depletion, abiotic depletion (fossil fuels), global warming, ozone layer depletion, human toxicity, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity, marine aquatic ecotoxic-ity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, photochemical oxidation, acidification potential and eutrophication potential were found to be 1.61 kg Sb eq, 20.19 MJ, 3.63 kg CO2 eq, 1.90 kg CFC -11 eq, 67.60 kg 1.4 DB eq, 4.55 kg 1.4 DB eq, 1.04 kg 1.4 DB eq, 1.17 kg 1.4 DB eq, 0.0005 kg C2H4 eq, 0.024 kg SO2 eq and 0.0094 kg PO4 eq, respectively. The results showed that the feed input has the highest emissions in comparison with other inputs.