Balticsea 2020

Eutrophication: Our project shows that industrial livestock farms can avoid leakage to the Baltic Sea

In 2010 BalticSea2020 started a long-term, large-scale project with the objective to identify and implement cost-effective measures to reduce the leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers. Animal manure has always been used as a nutrient in crop production. As livestock farming became increasingly industrialized, farms became so big that there was not enough land available for dispersing the manure they produced. 

Manure contains large quantities of the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen. Without proper management, the nitrogen is released into the air where it contributes to climate change. The phosphorus enters watercourses and contributes to eutrophication in lakes and seas.

Industrial livestock farms can achieve a nutrient cycle
To enable it to be implemented, the project required a large-scale livestock farm that was open to changing processes and working methods. That farm was in Przybkowo, Poland. For almost two years now, the farm has a new line for minimizing nutrient leaching by safely storing, managing and spreading manure. Spring 2019, we visited the farm to see how the new line works and how it has affected the farm and its nutrient balance. The result shows that industrial livestock farms can avoid leakage to the Baltic Sea. Short time after the visit we wrote an article about the project, read the article “Industrial livestock farms can achieve a nutrient cycle” here (from June 2019), to find out more about the project and the results.

You can also find out more in short film about the project, by Folke Rydén, here: Demonstration plant for effective manure management

Short film about the project in Poland, by Folke Rydén