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Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Ammonia Volatilization Trends Following Liquid Hog Manure Application to Forage Land
Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 2003 | No Comments
Viral zoonoses – a threat under control?
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Canada's Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990-2001
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Canada’s agriculture sector emits and removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The main emission sources include: methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from animal production, i.e. enteric fermentation and manure management, and N2O is released from agricultural soils. Removals of CO2 are mainly from Canada’s agricultural soils. This net removal of CO2, observed as an increase in soil carbon storage, is due to greater adoption of conservation practices such as no-till farming and the reduction of summer-fallow on the Canadian prairies.
As there is only a small amount of rice production in Canada, therefore, CH4 emissions from rice production are considered to be negligible and are not inventoried. Similarly, field burning of agricultural residues is no longer considered a common practice in Canadian agriculture and therefore is not inventoried. Prescribed burning of savannas is not a relevant practice in Canada. Greenhouse gas emissions from on-farm fuel combustion are included in Chapter 3: Energy.
For each emission source category, a brief introduction, methodological issues, uncertainties and time-series consistency, quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) and verification, recalculations and planned improvements are provided. The detailed inventory methodologies and activity data are described in Annex 3
Sampling Procedures for Piggery Slurry in Deep Pits for Estimation of Nutrient Content
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Pilot Implementation Study for Environmental Management System Standard Concludes
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A pilot implementation study designed to help fine tune a proposed environmental management system standard for Canadian hog operations has been completed and is now under review. The Canadian Pork Council (CPC) completed an initial study that analyzed the strengths and weaknesses associated with developing, adopting or adapting and environmental management system-based program. They developed a standard in draft form that outlines requirements in areas such as policy, planning, implementation, checking and corrective action. They should also identify their adverse environmental impacts and develop plans reduce and manage them to comply with the standard.
The pilot study has 12 hog operations attempting to implement the draft standard that was created. These operations had to determine what regulations they have to adhere to in operating their farms on a daily basis, identify the activities that occur within their operations that might have an adverse impact on the environment and put together a plan to mitigate those adverse effects. Third party auditors then went out to these operations to assess the standard’s affordability, operational feasibility, and auditability. The goal is to have the standard be as realistic and user-friendly as possible and to improve the standard before final release to the marketplace.
The benefits that could be realized from the environmental management system standards includes 1) the reduction of operator’s adverse impacts of the environment; 2) the improvement of operator’s efficiency through reduced resource use and waste generation; and 3) the improvement of the operator’s market access and competitiveness by promoting environmentally friendly products.
Simulation and Validation of the Evaporation of Water from Liquid Manure using Ventilation Exhaust Air: linking of two Simulation Models
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The pig production needs to be modified into a sustainable system. Handling of the manure and reducing
emissions have to be taken into account in the design of pig facilities, so the called integrated pig facilities are being developed in which the energy in the exhaust air can be used to evaporate water fromliquid manure. The objective of this research was to link an existing dynamic simulation model for indoor climate calculation to a newly developed simulation model for manure evaporation, allowing annualised calculation of evaporation. The physical processes that occur in the liquid manure evaporator were described in a dynamic simulation model. This model was validated with experiments carried out in a laboratory facility. This model underestimated the evaporation with an average of 154%. Some explanations were given. Model calculation of the evaporation at annual basis shows that per fattening pig place 038 to 041m3 liquid manure per year can be evaporated. To increase the evaporation level, thermal energy can be added. The linking of two simulation models was successful. The liquid manure drying simulation model can be used to gain insight in the possibilities of using a manure drying technique under a variety of circumstances, and to design practical installations and to optimise the drying process.
Literature review: the physical properties of compost
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