GIBSI – A Watershed-Based Software System for Water Resources Management.

Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 1997 | No Comments

A software system is presented, GIBSI, and this system was developed as a tool to assist decision makers in their management of water resources considering water quality and also quantity at watershed level. Simulations can be done with this software that is composed of a Geographical Information System (GIS), a Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS) and simulation models. The user-friendly interface of the GIBSI is design for easy use and simulations with different management practices for agriculture, industrial and municipal applications can be made. The Chaudiere River watershed is currently represented in the GIBSI, as all spatial and attribute data have been collected and integrated in the GIS and the RDBMS.

The GIS system used is Grassland and the database system is Access TM. The model is made of submodels that represent five major processes: hydrologic cycle, the soil erosion process, the river erosion process, the transport of agricultural chemicals and the evolution of water quality. The precision of such system depends greatly on the accuracy of the data used and also the ability of the model used to well represent the reality. No information is given on this accuracy and the sensitivity of the system to different manure management or practices and the impact on the water quality.

Effects of repeated swine building exposures on normal naA?ve subjects

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

Respiratory responses of human subjects to air quality in a swine building.

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

The purpose of this study is to test the following hypotheses: (1) if air quality control strategy can be directly evaluated by measuring respiratory responses in swine building environments. Twenty naA?ve human subjects (subjects were between 18 and 35 years old and had never been exposed to an enclosed swine environment before) were exposed to two different air qualities, a treatment and a control, in a swine building. The treatment room was sprinkled with crude canola oil, which reduced the dust, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide by 93%, 30% and 27%, respectively, compared with the control. Each subject spent five hours in each room. They were scheduled to do a bicycle exercise that was intended to simulate the barn workersa

Reduction of Ammonia Volatilization by Housing and Feeding in Fattening Piggeries

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

Appropriate pen design where less than 50% of the floor surface is slatted combined to a good control of the indoor conditions (particularly in the summer to prevent pen fouling) can reduce the ammonia emission and also improve animal welfare.

Effect of C Source on Bedding and Compost N Volatilization

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

N losses are taken as a whole making no difference between ammonia emission and NO and N2O emissions. The composting process when not well controlled, can results in NO and N2O emissions. No information is given on the temperature of the compost during the process even if thermocouples were installed to measure it. No information is also given to the composting process under winter conditions where the degradation processes are slowed by the low temperature and the slowing down of bacteria activity.

County votes down corporate hog farms

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

The Seaboard Corp. tries to complete an integrated project around a hog plant located in Guymon Okla., that could increase its slaughter capacity from 14 000 head /day to 16 000 head. This project is tied to swine production units in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. Last spring, Seaboard Corp. acquired real estate (in Kansas and just across the border in Oklahoma) and informed the official of Seward County, Kansas of their plan for pork production units and a feed mill building project. However, Seward County controversy and the opposition toward corporate pork production it has arisen in other states that had previously supported corporate farming threaten the project. A vote was taken in Seward County and an overwhelming majority of citizen want to rescind corporate farming. The legality of this vote is questioned and the Kansas attorney general concluded that the vote is non-binding because the citizens are not specifically authorized by the law to rescind corporate farming while county commissioners can. However legal advisors of the county commission has interpreted the home-rule authority differently and consider the vote binding. The county commission may have to vote and the commissioners who supported the Seaboard Corp. are under severe pressure.
Disputes over corporate farming are happening on many other Kansas counties even if some of them had endorsed corporate farming in the past (particularly with Murphy Farms in Hodgeman County over a 10 000-sow facility). The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has environmental standards but the counties (as allowed by the law) can create more restrictive ones.
The Kansas Pork Producers Council is afraid the counties may start treating farms differently and that expansion may become difficult if county and state regulations become excessive.
The opponents are concerned with the important number of hogs (500 000) that would be put in Seward County and the impact it can have on the environment, property value and the influx of low-wage, immigrant labor it could bring. They consider that the tax revenue from those operations would not outbalance the negative impact on the county and that the existing KDHE’s policy on waste regulation is inadequate.

The disputes are severe and could have an impact on all the pork production in that state because the line between pork corporate farming and pork production is thin (today’s corporate production units size could become tomorrow farmers production size). Links between concentrated production and environmental rules are not outlined. Some dairy farmers are taking position against corporate farming.

Hogs Your Way – Self Guiding Decision Support System for Producers Evaluating Hog Production Systems

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

The development of a set of criteria was done by a large and interdisciplinary group from the hog industry in order to evaluate 3 alternative hog production system. The systems evaluated were: the Swedish Deep Straw Farrowing System (Vastgotmodellen), Pasture Systems for farrowing and finishing and for the finishing and farrowing stages, the Hoop Houses using straw. Those systems were found to be economically interesting for specific size production units (beginning, small and medium sized farms) and they could lower certain environmental impacts compared to conventional production units on liquid manure systems. A guide has been develop to assist the producers that want to start swine production or change their production system. This guide integrate to the decision making process the specific vision of the producer, his vision and goals for his farm and family and the elements of the different production systems.

Such type of decision support system should be done to help farmers with the choice of “environmental friendly” production systems for integration in the actual farm or when planning new buildings. Different systems with consideration of odours, gas emissions, risk to soil and water are available. To decide which are the most appropriate and cost effective for a given farm or situation is difficult with no help. The tool that have been developed does not cover all environmental aspects, particularly for gas emissions.

Developing a Manure & Dead Animal Management Plan

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

Several management systems are discussed for manure utilization and dead animals disposal for different types of livestock facilities. Basic informations are given on manure nutrients, sampling, crop requirements and manure application. Five acceptable methods for storage and disposal of dead animals are also discussed such as : rendering, burial, incineration, refrigeration and composting. The choice from one system to another belongs to the operator who has to consider environmental regulations, neighboring residences, economics and livestock facilities appearance.

Dietary Manipulation to Reduce Ammonia and Odorous Compounds in Excreta and Anaerobic Manure Storages

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

The results of this study showed that diets with reduced crude protein and supplemented with essential amino acids lower significantly the total N excreted and the ammonia concentrations, and modified the concentration and ratio of specific volatile compounds in fresh manure. The measurements for the concentrations and emissions were done in a laboratory on fresh manure samples and samples stored to simulate anaerobic storage.

Evaluation of a Standard Sampling Method for Determination of Odour Emission from Animal Housing Systems and Calibration of the Dutch Pig Odour Unit into Standardised Odour Units

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

In the Netherlands an odour research program was started to study odour from conventional housing systems and also new low ammonia systems using a new official odour measurement protocol. These measurements should give the basis for the integration of the new systems in the odour regulatory system. The results of the first year program are presented and emphasis is made on the new protocol and calibration of the Pig odour unit evaluation. The protocol evaluation was done for two conventional pig housing systems: fattening pigs (FP) and sows in individual stalls (SP) both on partly slatted floors and for each system four farms were chosen. The experimental design and analysis was done to obtain the variation between and within the farms and also the variation coming from the olfactometric measurements for both systems. The variations between-farm were 22% (for FP) and 2% (for SP) mean percentage deviations, the variation within-farm was 34% (FP) and 19% (SP) and the variation between duplicate samples were 16% (FP) and 23% (SP). For the FP system the odour emission geometric mean was 22.6 odour units/s per animal place for a ventilation rate of 33.3 m3/h per animal. The protocol used prescribes ten sampling days for the sampling of single farm and considering the estimated variation sources, the accuracy levels obtained are of 24.5% for FP and 8.1% for SP. Higher accuracy, 9.5% for FP and 6.7% for SP could be obtained with the same number of odour samples by taking one sample on 20 different farms. On conclusion, all variation sources should considered for each animal category before the protocol design of housing systems evaluation. The resulting sample strategies could then be different between animal categories.

When odor is regulated and controlled, standard protocols should be establish for odor determination of specific housing systems. Those protocols may be quite complex to establish because all variation sources have to be considered for all animal categories. For example, the growing stage in a fattening building will have an impact on those variations (beginning of the period vs. end of the period for all-in all-out).