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(PA) Governor Edward G. Rendell today announced the commonwealth is investing $5 million in federal recovery money in eight innovative alternative energy projects that use biological materials such as sewage, animal and food processing waste to generate enough energy to power more than 80,000 homes.
The EPA reports that roughly 99 percent of dairy operations distribute their waste overland, in an attempt to fortify the soil.
They also note, however, that 36-61 percent of small (200-700 milking cows) dairies have insufficient land to absorb the nutrients of their manure, while 14 percent have no land at all. Fifty-one to sixty-eight percent of large facilities (>700 milking cows) have insufficient land, and 22 percent have no land (EPA 2002, p. 4-83).
This discrepancy is sometimes remedied by distributing manure on another farmer's land, but nutrients from animal waste often far exceed regional needs.
In 1998 Carpenter et al found that "nutrient flows to aquatic ecosystems are directly related to animal stocking densities, and under high livestock densities, manure production exceeds the needs of crops to which the manure is applied" (p. 559). In this case, nutrients become pollutants and can be toxic to living systems.
MECHELEN, Belgium - 17 September, 2009 - Cargill has launched a unique breakthrough innovation that enables the cost-effective production of a 100 percent non-dairy cheese analogue for pizza and other prepared food applications. Lygomme™ ACH Optimum functional system (patent pending) replicates the functionality of dairy protein and replaces it fully at an outstanding cost advantage for the manufacturer.
Cargill's recent launch of an ingredient for use in making analogue cheese, per the below press release, has raised concerns by some in the U.S. dairy industry that it will hurt dairy producers.
Originally posted by TheRedneck
Everyday, an average cow produces six to seven gallons of milk and 18 gallons of manure. New Mexico has 300,000 milk cows. That totals 5.4 million gallons of manure in the state every day. It's enough to fill up nine Olympic-size pools. Every single day.
Dealing with the waste - so-called "manure management" - is the dairy industry's greatest environmental challenge.
Farms dispose of waste in two ways.
First, workers hose the muck off the concrete floor of a milking barn, and it flows into a plastic- or clay-lined lagoon where the liquid evaporates.
Second, waste from the feedlot where the cows live is collected and used as fertilizer for grain crops.
But the New Mexico Environment Department reports that two-thirds of the state's 150 dairies are contaminating groundwater with excess nitrogen from cattle excrement. Either the lagoons are leaking, or manure is being applied too heavily on farmland.
"As we get more and more monitoring data, what we see is that more and more dairies have contamination underneath them. So something isn't working about those facilities," says Marcy Leavitt, director of the department's Water and Wastewater Division.
The problem is worsened by the tendency of large dairies to cluster together.
In many places, the powerful dairy lobby blocks tough state regulations, and the federal EPA lacks broad powers to crack down on agricultural runoff. But in New Mexico, the winds might have begun to shift.
Of course, you can even find worksheets and application guides about the process
Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by dzonatas
Of course, you can even find worksheets and application guides about the process
And again, these are written by people who sit in an office, not people who have spent their lives growing food.