Environmental Performance

Data Collection and Management

The data in this section account for all nine processing plants and 67 hog farming operations managed by our wholly owned European subsidiaries in Romania and Poland. We continue working to collect and report international operations data in a way that is compatible with our domestic companies. This will allow comparisons among companies, and help our international operations join in the efforts to meet our company-wide sustainability goals.

Evaluating Water Risk

In 2011, our international operations used 1.6 billion gallons of water for raising hogs and making our products. Like our U.S. operations, we are working to develop more proactive water management systems in Poland and Romania. To this end, we recently began to use the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) Global Water Tool to identify facilities located in water-stressed regions. Based on 2025 projections, we have identified 12 locations—all in Poland—in potentially water-stressed areas. Poland has less available water per capita than many other European countries and the United States. Over the next year, we will investigate these findings further to better understand the nature of the anticipated stresses and the role our operations play as users of water.

Reducing Resource Intensity

We closely monitor environmental performance at each facility, and make every effort to improve the efficiency of our operations. Since 2008, we have reduced water use per 100 pounds of product at our farms and our processing plants by 8 percent. Normalized electricity use fell by nearly 3 percent, thanks to continued efficiency improvement projects. We also reduced our normalized greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 12 percent over the same period. The amount of waste sent to landfills per 100 pounds of product decreased by 18.2 percent.

The following chart illustrates the impacts of our efforts to produce our products using fewer natural resources and generating less waste. Our challenge now is to push for further improvements.

Since 2008, NOx emissions from our Polish processing facilities have fallen by 31 percent, while SOx emissions were reduced by 35 percent. This improved performance was driven by better emissions controls and our efforts to use energy efficiently at our processing facilities. Our processing operations had zero NOVs for the second year in a row.

Since 2009, GHG emissions from our transportation operations fell 30 percent. None of our farms received NOVs in 2010, a significant reduction from the previous year. None of our farms received a fine in 2010.

Animal Manure Management Systems

Properly handling and treating manure generated at our farms is an important component of our hog raising operations. Protecting local water sources and utilizing a potentially valuable resource as effectively as possible is a priority. Both of the European farming independent operating companies have dedicated environmental and manure management staff at the supervisory and field technician levels. The former coordinate permitting and compliance activities. The latter develop our nutrient management plans and supervise land application by company and contract applicators.

The anaerobic treatment and storage lagoon processes that we use to treat and manage hog manure in most of our domestic operations are often not feasible in the cold climates of Poland and Romania. Only 33 percent of our Polish facilities use storage lagoons while the remaining farms either use storage tanks or combine the manure with straw bedding before using the manure to fertilize crops. Treatments and storage processes vary, depending on the facility. See Manure Treatment Systems and Crops Produced in 2010 by Smithfield Foods (PDF).

Each of our farms in Europe uses a comprehensive nutrient management plan when applying manure as organic fertilizer to local farmland. In Poland, each plan is reviewed and approved by the local authorities prior to implementation; in Romania, the local authorities prepare the plans, which include crop descriptions and projected yields; soil and manure test information; and rates of application to balance with the crops’ fertilization needs. The use of manure as an organic fertilizer provides nutrients and promotes soil health, while providing financial benefits to local farmers. Our European operations applied hog manure to 29,752 hectares (73,520 acres) of crops in 2010, up 19 percent from the previous year. Our farms in Romania saw the most change; land application increased by just over 4,000 hectares (30 percent) during the reporting period. This was due to the expansion of land application to additional farms over the last several years.