Launching meeting of the project "Manure Standards"

WHAT IS VALUE IN MANURE?

On February 9, 2018, the association "Farmers' Council" and the State Plant Protection Service invited farms interested in effective manure management, as well as representatives of institutions and educational institutions whose competence includes the use of organic fertilizers, to participate in the meeting.

Agenda 
The first seminar of the project “What is valuable in manure?” Manure Standards or Improved Manure Standards for Sustainable Nutrient Management and Emission Reduction or Manure Standards took place at the LLKC office in Ozolnieki and gathered 47 participants. The seminar was organized by ZSA and VAAD.
The relevance of the topic was informed by both the responsible persons of the Ministry of Agriculture and the project partner VAAD. The project consultant, LLU professor Andis Kārkliņš, informed the attendees about historical research conducted in Latvia on manure and emphasized that in recent years no reliable information has been obtained that could improve the current manure standards. Manure analyses are carried out by individual farms, as well as within the framework of individual projects, therefore the data are not comparable and interpretable. The professor emphasized that performing manure analyses is a resource-intensive process, and therefore calculation methodologies are used more in the world, based on the circulation of nutrients in the farm.
Director of the Agrochemistry Department of VAAD Skaidrīte Rulle once again informed all those present about the regulatory requirements for the use of manure, emphasizing the problems when conducting controls. In turn, VAAD expert Lauris Leitāns informed about the project in general, emphasizing what specific activities will be carried out on farms. The most important thing is that farms will have to fill out a questionnaire, with the help of which it is intended to obtain comprehensive information about farming. The questionnaire will be the same for all partners in all countries, which will help create a unified methodology.
ZSA agricultural expert Iveta Grudovska informed the seminar participants about other projects that also address the issue of manure. The expert pointed out that the results of manure analyses taken within the framework of the GreenAgri project differ from the information included in the standard. In addition, significant nitrogen loss is observed in the process from the barn to the storage.
In turn, Silvija Dreijere, head of the livestock department at the Latvian Agricultural and Livestock Centre, reminded those present in an understandable way about the basic principles of cattle feeding in order to reduce both methane and ammonia emissions emitted by animals as much as possible. The more productive the animals, the lower the emissions per unit of production.
The answer to the question of what farms will gain from participating in the project was found during the seminar: a unified methodology for taking manure samples will be developed (there will also be a video training), which will help farmers themselves take a correct sample in order to get an idea of the nutrients contained in manure. The second benefit – based on the results of manure analyses of selected farms (there will be a total of 26 farms in Latvia), the standard will be improved. In the opinion of the ZSA, it is essential to supplement the information in the existing standard on the group of high-yielding cows (milk yield over 10,000 kg per year), suckler cows and sheep. An improved standard will allow Latvian farms not to conduct manure analyses every year, but to make their own calculations based on the information contained in the standard.
Presentations:
Lauris Leitāns, VAAD – Manure standards
Skaidrīte Rulle, VAAD – Regulatory requirements for the use of manure. Current problems.
Iveta Grudovska, ZSA – Current events of the projects of the Farmers' Assembly
Iveta Ozoliņa, Ministry of Agriculture – Manure standards
Andis Kārkliņš, LLU – What is valuable in manure?
Silvija Dreijere LLU – Feeding dairy cows to reduce emissions
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Within the framework of the project “Manure Standards” (Improved Manure Standards for Sustainable Nutrient Management and Emission Reduction/Manure Standards) #R057.
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