USDA ERS - Crop & Livestock Practices: Manure Management

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Crop & Livestock Practices

Manure Management

The U.S. agricultural landscape has rapidly evolved with a shift to bigger and more specialized farms, along with a large increase in commercial fertilizer use. This shift has resulted in less opportunity to jointly manage manure and plant nutrient needs within a single operation. Further, livestock operations are becoming more consolidated, thus larger operations are producing a greater volume of manure on smaller areas. A higher manure-to-cropland ratio has magnified the risk that manure nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) and pathogens that might flow into ground and surface water due to overapplication of manure on crops or leakage from manure storage facilities.

ERS conducts research on how livestock farmers may be compensating with higher manure-to-cropland ratios through more effective manure management, specifically:

The influence of various factors (changes to the Clean Water Act, State regulations, and local conflicts over air quality) on manure management decisions. See Nitrogen in Agricultural Systems: Implications for Conservation Policy (ERR-127, September 2011) and Trends and Developments in Hog Manure Management: 1998-2009 (EIB-81, September 2011) for more information.

How the use of nutrient management plans and of practices such as the adoption of methane digesters vary with scale of production. See Carbon Prices and the Adoption of Methane Digesters on Dairy and Hog Farms (EIB-16, February 2011), Climate Change Policy and the Adoption of Methane Digesters on Livestock Operations (ERR-111, February 2011), and The Role of Agriculture in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (EIB-15, September 2010) for more on this topic.

Last updated: Thursday, June 07, 2012

For more information contact: Jayson Beckman

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Crop & Livestock Practices

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