Hog production facilities have increased in size over the years, and along with this increase have come complaints due to odour. Odour associated with hog operations are from three main sources: a) building exhaust, b) manure storage, and c) land application of manure. As more and more producers are adopting manure injection, odour from land application is becoming less of a concern in Manitoba. But our understating of odour emissions from buildings and manure storage is still elusive. In particular, the relative contributions to odour from barns and the manure storage are not well known. This project aimed to quantify these relative odour contributions by comparing odour emissions and dispersion between two similar hog operations with different manure storage systems. A common practice of reducing the impact of livestock odour on the neighbouring communities is to maintain appropriate separation (setback) distance between the facility and the neighbouring communities. The downwind odour impact depends on many factors, including odour emission, weather conditions, topography, and odour sensitivity and tolerance of the neighbors. The methods for estimating setback distances are either empirical (experience plus measurements) or dispersion-based. This project evaluated commonly used setback and dispersion models for Manitoba conditions. It is estimated that agricultural operations contribute approximately 10% of the total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada, with about 40% of that originating from livestock production. However, little is known about the relative contributions to GHG emissions from barns and manure storage in different production systems. This project addressed the issue of greenhouse gas emission from hog operations with open and covered manure storage.
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