ELFE, a database to determine greenhouse gases and ammonia emissions factors from livestock

ELFE, a database to determine greenhouse gases and ammonia emissions factors from livestock. 20. Nitrogen Workshop. Coupling C-N-P-S cycle

A practical manual to assess and improve farm performances

The business of a dairy farmer is to supply society with dairy products in a way that provides him sufficient income and satisfaction. But he has to avoid farming practices hampering the rural area to deliver other valuable products, like clean drinking water, biodiversity, and attractive recreation facilities. The socio-economic objectives of farmers change, as do the wants of rural societies. The prices of land, feeds, fuels and fertilizers change while innovations to support farming become available. Consequently, a farmer has to adapt his farming practices to the changing reality. In this context, DAIRYMAN aims to strengthen rural communities in the regions of North Western Europe (NWE) where dairy farming is a main economic activity and a vital form of land use. DAIRYMAN will lead to a more competitive dairy sector, stronger regional economies, and an improved ecological performance of the rural area. DAIRYMAN is a project in the INTERREG IVB programme co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The project is working at three levels: regional, commercial dairy pilot farms, and knowledge transfer centres

Influence of diet and manure management on ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions from dairy barns

Dairy systems are a source of pollutant emissions, such as greenhouse gases (GHG) and NH3 that are associated with impacts on the environment. Gas emissions in barns are related mainly to diet intake and chemical composition, N excretion and manure management. A reduction in dietary N is known to be an effective way to reduce N excretion and the resulting NH3 emissions. However, most studies consider manure in liquid form with frequent removal from the barn. In deep litter systems, several processes can occur during the accumulation of solid manure that result in variable gas emissions. The objective of this experiment was to investigate the influence of the interaction between dietary CP (low or high) and manure management (liquid or solid) on gas emissions (NH3, N2O, CH4) at the barn level. Dietary treatments provided either low (LowN; 12% CP) or high (HighN; 18% CP) degradable protein to modify the amount of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) excreted. The cows were housed for two 8-week periods in two mechanically ventilated rooms equipped to manage manure either in liquid (LM; slurry) or solid form (SM; deep litter). In the LM treatment, N balance was measured for 4 days. As expected, animals fed the LowN diet ingested 35% less N and excreted 65% less N in their urine, with no reduction in faecal N excretion and N secretion in milk. On the LowN diet, excretion of urea-N and NH3-N emissions were reduced regardless of the manure management. On the HighN diet, urinary urea-N excretion was three times as high, while NH3-N emissions were 3.0 and 4.5 times as high in LM and SM, respectively. Manure management strongly influenced CH4-C emissions, which were 30% higher in SM than in LM, due to the accumulation of litter. Moreover, gas emissions from solid manure increased over the accumulation period, except for NH3 on the LowN diet. Finally, our results suggest that methods used for national inventories would become more accurate by considering the variability in TAN excretion, which is the primary factor that influences NH3 emissions

A practical manual to assess and improve farm performances

The business of a dairy farmer is to supply society with dairy products in a way that provides him sufficient income and satisfaction. But he has to avoid farming practices hampering the rural area to deliver other valuable products, like clean drinking water, biodiversity, and attractive recreation facilities. The socio-economic objectives of farmers change, as do the wants of rural societies. The prices of land, feeds, fuels and fertilizers change while innovations to support farming become available. Consequently, a farmer has to adapt his farming practices to the changing reality. In this context, DAIRYMAN aims to strengthen rural communities in the regions of North Western Europe (NWE) where dairy farming is a main economic activity and a vital form of land use. DAIRYMAN will lead to a more competitive dairy sector, stronger regional economies, and an improved ecological performance of the rural area. DAIRYMAN is a project in the INTERREG IVB programme co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The project is working at three levels: regional, commercial dairy pilot farms, and knowledge transfer centres

La base de données ELFE : vers une meilleure connaissance des émissions gazeuses liées à l’élevage

National audienceThe increasing demand for animal products is a major challenge for the livestock sector that must reduce its environmental impacts and ensure its sustainability. This sector has been identified as an important contributor to polluting gas emissions. Improving the knowledge on the origin and the magnitude of air pollutants and greenhouse gases emissions from livestock sector is essential to address climate change and to contribute to improve air quality with the evolution of breeding practices (feeding strategy, manure management, etc.). A consortium involving research and extension services partners was created to build a database called ELFE (ELevages et Facteurs d’Emission) with international data from literature references focusing on emissions of ammonia, greenhouse gases, particles and odors on the different steps of manure management of cattle, pig and poultry productions systems and their associated key variables. Around 350 publications (among 1 000 publications collected) are integrated into the database and provide more than 5 200 emission values. The ELFE database allows calculating average of emission and their standard deviation taking into account the diversity of livestock systems. These data can be used to provide emission factor for national inventories for specific livestock systems and also, to evaluate practices on gas emissions mitigation. This database can also be used to analyze the influence of key variables on the emission factor variability using multicriteria assessment (climate, building type, etc.). Moreover, this database propose a classification of emission factor into three classes according to the degree on which information about their most influential key variables was complete (>50 % ; 30-50 % ; 50 % ; 30-50 % ; <30 % des métadonnées renseignées) afin d’évaluer son niveau de description

Procédés et traitements par compostage des effluents d'élevages

National audienceProcédés et traitements par compostage des effluents d'élevage