Life Cycle Assessment of Functional Animal Feeds Enriched with Natural Bioactive Compounds Derived from Medicinal Plants and Herbs

Animal breeding that includes antibiotics and vitamin consumption is considered as a major contributor to the multifaceted environmental impact of livestock farming. The production of innovative, functional animal feed premixes with antimicrobial and/or growth promoting activity from plants and herbal extracts could minimize the use of antibiotics and vitamins in livestock and enhance animal growth. However, the production of this new feed has to be followed by a low environmental footprint, and particularly lower when compared to conventional animal feeds. The objective of this study was the evaluation of Life Cycle Assessment of the newly produced functional poultry feeds that contain plant and herb origin extracts, as well as its comparison with the conventional animal feeding routine, which actually stands as the scope of the present LCA study. LCA was performed according to ISO 14040 & 14044, using GaBi software, utilizing ReCiPe 2016 (H)* methodology with 18 midpoints and 3 endpoints. To this end, to define the Goal of the study, Cradle-to-gate boundaries were set and the functional unit was defined as the total feeding quantity (including normal animal feed, antibiotics, vitamins) in 1 Month (per Kg of animal). Different scenarios were examined, in terms of the consumed quantities of supplementary substances (antibiotics and vitamins). The results of the examined scenarios reveal that the environmental impact is significantly lower in the case of encapsulated Bioactive compounds (BACs) extract incorporation, as well as in the case of raw BACs extract incorporation. Therefore, the substitution of antibiotics and vitamins from natural bioactive compounds, which is the scope of the production of this functional feed, constitutes a realistic goal.