Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium Flows through the Manure Management Chain in China

The largest livestock production and greatest fertilizer use in the world occurs in China. However, quantification of the nutrient flows through the manure management chain and their interactions with management-related measures is lacking. Herein, we present a detailed analysis of the nutrient flows and losses in the “feed intake–excretion–housing–storage–treatment–application” manure chain, while considering differences among livestock production systems. We estimated the environmental loss from the manure chain in 2010 to be up to 78% of the excreted nitrogen and over 50% of the excreted phosphorus and potassium. The greatest losses occurred from housing and storage stages through NH₃ emissions (39% of total nitrogen losses) and direct discharge of manure into water bodies or landfill (30–73% of total nutrient losses). There are large differences among animal production systems, where the landless system has the lowest manure recycling. Scenario analyses for the year 2020 suggest that significant reductions of fertilizer use (27–100%) and nutrient losses (27–56%) can be achieved through a combination of prohibiting manure discharge, improving manure collection and storages infrastructures, and improving manure application to cropland. We recommend that current policies and subsidies targeted at the fertilizer industry should shift to reduce the costs of manure storage, transport, and application

How to enhance the role of science in European Union policy making and implementation: The case of agricultural impacts on drinking water quality

Throughout the European Union (EU), high concentrations of nitrates and pesticides are among the major polluting components of drinking water and have potential long-term impacts on the environment and human health. Many research projects co-funded by the European Commission have been carried out, but the results often do not influence policy making and implementation to the extent that is duly justified. This paper assesses several issues and barriers that weaken the role of science in EU policy making and EU policy implementation in the case of agricultural impacts on drinking water quality. It then proposes improvements and solutions to strengthen the role of science in this process. The analysis is conceptual but supported empirically by a desk study, a workshop, and complementary individual interviews, mostly with representatives of organizations working at the EU level. The results indicate that perceived barriers are mostly observed on the national or regional level and are connected with a lack of political will, scarce instruction on the legislation implementation process, and a lack of funding opportunities for science to be included in policy making and further EU policy implementation. In response to that, we suggest translating scientific knowledge on technological, practical or environmental changes and using dissemination techniques for specific audiences and in local languages. Further, the relationship between data, information and decision making needs to change by implementing monitoring in real-time, which will allow for the quick adaptation of strategies. In addition, we suggest project clustering (science, policy, stakeholders, and citizens) to make science and research more connected to current policy challenges and stakeholder needs along with citizen involvement with an aim of establishing sustainable long-term relationships and communication flows.</p

China’s pig relocation in balance

In 2015, the Chinese government banned livestock production in some regions (called non-livestock production regions, NLPRs) to control surface water pollution near vulnerable water bodies. In total, 90,000 NLPRs had been established by 2017, covering a land area of 0.82 million km2 and shutting down 0.26 million pig farms1. As a consequence, the number of slaughtered pigs decreased by 46 million head yr–1 between 2014 and 2017. The NLPRs policy is globally unprecedented in terms of the geographical area and number of farms affected, as well as its implementation speed. The NLPRs policy has reduced pork self-sufficiency in some provinces by up to 40% (ref. 2). However, it is unclear which farms and regions may take over the market share

A decision support system for the integrated evaluation of agricultural management on environmental quality

ABSTRACT Excess nitrogen inputs by animal manure and fertilizer in the Netherlands do cause various effects, such as (i) decreased plant species diversity of terrestrial ecosystems by eutrophication and acidification induced by elevated N deposition, (ii) decreased water quality and species diversity of aquatic ecosystems and eutrophication of coastal systems, mainly induced by runoff of N, (iii) high NO 3 concentrations in groundwater, used as drinking water with potential health impacts and (iv) elevated N 2 O emissions causing climate change. Apart from N emissions, excessive manure inputs also cause emissions of other greenhouse gases, mainly methane (CH 4 ), and accumulation and/or elevated leaching of various compounds to ground water and surface water. This paper presents an overview of the integrated model system IMITATOR predicting: (i) emissions of ammonia and greenhouse gases (CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O) from animal housing systems, agricultural land and drained peat lands and (ii) accumulation and leaching and runoff of carbon, nutrients (nitrogen, phosphate and base cations) and metals from agricultural soils to ground water and surface water. Results of various mitigation measures in view of reducing emissions of nitrogen compounds to air, ground water and surface water, including improved farming practices and structural changes in agriculture, do have a positive spinoff on the emissions or accumulation of other compounds as illustrated in the paper

Nitrogen in Current European Policies

Europe, and especially the European Union (EU), has many governmental policy ¿ measures aimed at decreasing unwanted reactivenitrogen (N r ) emissions from combustion, agriculture and urban wastes. Many of these policy measures have an ¿eff ects-basedapproach¿, and focus on single N r compounds, single sectors and either on air or waters.¿ Th is chapter addresses the origin, objectives and targets of EU policy measures related to Nr emissions, considers which instrumentsare being used to implement the policies and briefl y discusses the eff ects of the policy measures.Approaches¿ Th e chapter starts with a brief description of the basic elements of governmental policy measures.¿ A review of the main international conventions and EU policies related to emissions of Nr to air and water is then provided.¿ Finally the chapter provides a semi-quantitative assessment of the eff ectiveness and effi ciency of European policy measures.Key fi ndings/state of knowledge¿ International conventions and other treaties have played a key role in raising awareness and establishing policy measures for Nr emissionsabatement in EU through so-called Directives and Regulations.¿ Th ere are many diff erent EU Directives, oft en addressing individual Nr compounds from individual sectors (e.g. NOx emissions fromcombustion; NH 3 emissions from agriculture, pollution of groundwater and surface water by nitrates from agriculture, discharge oftotal nitrogen from urban sewage to surface waters).¿ Many EU Directives have been revised following review and evaluation. Th ere are increasing eff orts to cluster single EU Directives intolarger Framework Directives.¿ Compliance with, and eff ectiveness of, the Directives diff ers between sectors; it decreases in the order (i) reducing NO x emissions fromcombustion sources, (ii) reducing nitrogen (and especially Phosphorus) discharges to waters from industries and households, and (iii)reducing NH 3 emissions and NO 3 leaching from agriculture.¿ Th ere is not much literature on the diff erences in the eff ectiveness and effi ciencies of Directives; a number of factors seem to be involvedin eff ectiveness and effi ciency, but these have not yet been analysed in a coherent manner.Major uncertainties/challenges¿ Th ere is a huge diversity in N r emission sources and pathways, while the number of policy instruments is limited. Th ere is need to fi ndthe optimal mix of policy instruments targeted to the emission sources as well as the stakeholders involved.¿ It has been indicated that some EU Directives addressing emissions of nitrogen compounds from specifi c sources have antagonisticeff ects. Th e magnitude of these eff ects is not yet well known.¿ Th ere is a delay in the environmental and ecological responses following the introduction of Directives; these are due to legislativedelays, lack of enforcement and control, constraints in practice and because of biogeochemical hysteresis eff ects; these eff ects are notyet well understood quantitatively.¿ In general, only modest reductions in Nr emissions from agriculture have been achieved to date; this refl ects the need for more eff ectiveand effi cient policy measures and/or greater enforcement of current policies.Recommendations¿ To examine further the diff erences between sectors of the factors that contribute to the eff ectiveness and effi ciency of policy measuresfor the abatement of N r emissions.¿ T o explore further the eff ectiveness and effi ciency of more integrated N management and integrated policy measures for the abatementof adverse impacts of N r emissions.JRC.DDG.H.2-Climate change and air qualit

Nitrogen surplus : a unified indicator for water pollution in Europe?

Pollution of ground-and surface waters with nitrates from agricultural sources poses a risk to drinking water quality and has negative impacts on the environment. At the national scale, the gross nitrogen budget (GNB) is accepted as an indicator of pollution caused by nitrates. There is, however, little common EU-wide knowledge on the budget application and its comparability at the farm level for the detection of ground-and surface water pollution caused by nitrates and the monitoring of mitigation measures. Therefore, a survey was carried out among experts of various European countries in order to assess the practice and application of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level and the differences between countries within Europe. While fertilization planning is practiced in all of the fourteen countries analyzed in this paper, according to current legislation, nitrogen budgets have to be calculated only in Switzerland, Germany and Romania. The survey revealed that methods of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level are not unified throughout Europe. In most of the cases where budgets are used regularly (Germany, Romania, Switzerland), standard values for the chemical composition of feed, organic fertilizers, animal and plant products are used. The example of the Dutch Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment (ANCA) tool (and partly of the Suisse Balance) shows that it is only by using farm-specific "real" data that budgeting can be successfully applied to optimize nutrient flows and increase N efficiencies at the farm level. However, this approach is more elaborate and requires centralized data processing under consideration of data protection concerns. This paper concludes that there is no unified indicator for nutrient management and water quality at the farm level. A comparison of regionally calculated nitrogen budgets across European countries needs to be interpreted carefully, as methods as well as data and emission factors vary across countries. For the implementation of EU nitrogen-related policies notably, the Nitrates Directive-nutrient budgeting is currently ruled out as an entry point for legal requirements. In contrast, nutrient budgets are highlighted as an environment indicator by the OECD and EU institutions

Ground Zero? Let’s get real on regeneration! Report 1: State of the art and indicator selection

The urgency with which the world needs to combat climate change has led to ambitious commitments by leading food companies such as Nestlé. Given that a large proportion of emissions in supply chains occur during the production of commodities, focus has converged on Regenerative Agriculture as a key strategy to achieve those goals. The Regenerative Agriculture agenda coalesces around three main goals: • Reduce the Carbon Footprint • Enhance Soil Health • Enhance and safeguard Biodiversity alongside commitments to enhance smallholder producers’ incomes, to avoid child labour and to ensure a sustainable supply. The Ground Zero project aims to provide a framework of robust, easily measurable and verifiable indicators and methods for the assessment of the carbon footprint, soil health and biodiversity in cocoa and coffee production systems. The project is organised around four work packages (WPs): WP1 – Coordination; WP2 – Carbon Footprints; WP3 – Soil Health; WP4 – Biodiversity. Here we report on the state-of-the-art for each of these topics and in a final chapter we indicate the next steps that will be taken in the project

Ammonia and nitrous oxide emission factors for excreta deposited by livestock and land-applied manure

Manure application to land and deposition of urine and dung by grazing animals are major sources of ammonia (NH3 ) and nitrous oxide (N2 O) emissions. Using data on NH3 and N2 O emissions following land-applied manures and excreta deposited during grazing, emission factors (EFs) disaggregated by climate zone were developed, and the effects of mitigation strategies were evaluated. The NH3 data represent emissions from cattle and swine manures in temperate wet climates, and the N2 O data include cattle, sheep, and swine manure emissions in temperate wet/dry and tropical wet/dry climates. The NH3 EFs for broadcast cattle solid manure and slurry were 0.03 and 0.24 kg NH3 -N kg-1 total N (TN), respectively, whereas the NH3 EF of broadcast swine slurry was 0.29. Emissions from both cattle and swine slurry were reduced between 46 and 62% with low-emissions application methods. Land application of cattle and swine manure in wet climates had EFs of 0.005 and 0.011 kg N2 O-N kg-1 TN, respectively, whereas in dry climates the EF for cattle manure was 0.0031. The N2 O EFs for cattle urine and dung in wet climates were 0.0095 and 0.002 kg N2 O-N kg-1 TN, respectively, which were three times greater than for dry climates. The N2 O EFs for sheep urine and dung in wet climates were 0.0043 and 0.0005, respectively. The use of nitrification inhibitors reduced emissions in swine manure, cattle urine/dung, and sheep urine by 45-63%. These enhanced EFs can improve national inventories; however, more data from poorly represented regions (e.g., Asia, Africa, South America) are needed

DATAMAN: A global database of nitrous oxide and ammonia emission factors for excreta deposited by livestock and land-applied manure

Nitrous oxide (N2 O), ammonia (NH3 ), and methane (CH4 ) emissions from the manure management chain of livestock production systems are important contributors to greenhouse gases (GHGs) and NH3 emitted by human activities. Several studies have evaluated manure-related emissions and associated key variables at regional, national, or continental scales. However, there have been few studies focusing on the drivers of these emissions using a global dataset. An international project was created (DATAMAN) to develop a global database on GHG and NH3 emissions from the manure management chain (housing, storage, and field) to identify key variables influencing emissions and ultimately to refine emission factors (EFs) for future national GHG inventories and NH3 emission reporting. This paper describes the "field" database that focuses on N2 O and NH3 EFs from land-applied manure and excreta deposited by grazing livestock. We collated relevant information (EFs, manure characteristics, soil properties, and climatic conditions) from published peer-reviewed research, conference papers, and existing databases. The database, containing 5,632 observations compiled from 184 studies, was relatively evenly split between N2 O and NH3 (56 and 44% of the EF values, respectively). The N2 O data were derived from studies conducted in 21 countries on five continents, with New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Kenya, and Brazil representing 86% of the data. The NH3 data originated from studies conducted in 17 countries on four continents, with the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, and The Netherlands representing 79% of the data. Wet temperate climates represented 90% of the total database. The DATAMAN field database is available at http://www.dataman.co.nz