Balticsea 2020

Demonstration plant for effective manure management (a project within the IPP Program)

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. Without proper management, nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) are released from the manure. The nitrogen is released into the air and contributes to climate change. The phosphorus enters watercourses and contributes to eutrophication in lakes and seas.

In 2010, BalticSea2020 started a long-term research and action program aiming to identify technologies and methods for minimizing the risk of nutrients leaching from manure. After an extensive investigative work in 2013, a large-scale demonstration project was started in collaboration with an industrial pig farm in Poland, which produces about 50,000 pigs a year.

Implementation

At the start of the project a nutritional balance was established for all phosphorus and nitrogen that was traded on the farm. This calculation then enabled the basis for measures, e.g.

• Pre-treatment of the manure (including acidification to make nitrogen less volatile, separation of manure (dry and wet fraction)).'
• Storage (the dry fraction is nodulized or spread as a local soil improvement while the wet fraction is stored in closed tanks with a capacity of 9 months storage, and then spread on the fileds when the risk of phosphorus leakage is minimal).'
• Spreading (when to spread the manure, as well as technologies of when to spread wet fractions in an efficient and safe way).

In parallel, the project runs a scientific monitoring program to measure and evaluate the effect of measures taken.

Today the farm has a new line for minimizing nutrient leaching by safely storing, managing and spreading manure.

* For more information find the technical reports “Best Available Technologies for Manure Treatment”, “Cost Effective Phosphorus Management Measures” and “Best Available Technologies for Pig Manure Biogas Plants in the Baltic Sea Region” at the right.