University News for July 22, 2010

A nutrient management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives says farmers have been very receptive to the adoption of new methods for managing livestock manure.

A field workshop on soil and manure management scheduled for tomorrow at the Glenlea Research Station and the Kelburn Research Farm and hosted by the National Centre for Livestock and the Environment and Richardson International, will cover a range of topics related to manure management.

Mitchell Timmerman, a nutrient management specialist with MAFRI, says producers have been very receptive to the adoption of new equipment and strategies for managing manure.

Clip-Mitchell Timmerman-Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives:
Producers are generally very innovative in western Canada in order to become more efficient in their operations for economic reasons.

The rising cost of fertilizer means that the manure is all the more valuable and producers are striving for a better quality product, better management overall, more consistency, more uniformity and so that means trying to manage what is an imbalanced fertilizer more accurately.

Another key factor would have to be regulation.

There are risks that have to be mitigated and can be with proper management and so it's through regulation that the people in Manitoba have decided that there needs to be assurance that that intensive management will be done.

Beyond that too is the fact that producers believe in proper environmental stewardship and being good neighbors.

There are odor concerns particularly with liquid manure and environmental sustainability is a pillar on which producers generally operate because they know they need to properly manage their resources in order to protect them and ensure their long term viability as operators and often as farm families.

Timmerman says the one resistance comes in the form of cost and that's where government has come into play by offering incentives to encourage practice change, particularly where the economics don't necessarily favor that change.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

-For more information on the Soil and Manure Management Field Workshop call 745-5638 or email Mitchell.Timmerman@gov.mb.ca.

*University News is a presentation of the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural & Food Sciences