Poor manure management practices are common on much of the world’s farms, as farmers lack awareness about the value of livestock manure as a fertilizer and fuel. Manure is often disposed of in piles, slurries or lagoons, which can lead to significant emissions of the greenhouse gas methane, as well environmental degradation, negative health impacts, and the loss of valuable nutrients that could be added to soil.
The Coalition’s Agriculture Initiative promotes integrated manure and urine management practices that prevent harmful short-lived climate pollutant emissions while also providing added benefits for farmers through cost savings and additional income.
Livestock manure contributes to short-lived climate pollutant emissions through two processes:
These pollutants in turn hinder agricultural production through their impacts on air quality and climate change.
The demand for livestock products, especially in developing countries, is expected to increase due to population growth and changes in dietary preferences. Without proper manure management practices, the increased animal numbers needed to meet this demand will result in an equal increase in emissions and other problems arising from manure collection, storage, treatment, and utilization.
While integrated manure management practices exist today, many farmers lack information to improve manure management or are faced with institutional, technical and socio-economic constraints that prevent them from adopting new practices.
The Coalition aims to facilitate changes in manure management practices at the policy and local levels.
The Coalition supports integrated practices that encompass all activities associated with the management of dung and urine: excretion, collection, housing and storage, anaerobic digestion, treatment, transport, application, and losses and discharge at any stage along the ‘manure chain’.
Our efforts are focused on mitigation opportunities in five regions, where we are carrying out studies of local conditions and partnering with agricultural producers and experts to facilitate knowledge sharing and access to resources.
Key areas of work include:
Partners and stakeholders have coordinated efforts to reduce short-lived climate pollutant emissions by:
Key objectives include:
Coalition-funded work to date has resulted in:
Together these activities have helped policymakers, practitioners and other key stakeholders acquire, share, and disseminate knowledge and leverage new and existing resource bases and institutions to enable the adoption of improved manure management practices at the regional, national, and local level.
Lead Partner: A Coalition partner with an active role in coordinating, monitoring and guiding the work of an initiative.
Implementer: A Coalition partner or actor receiving Coalition funds to implement an activity or initiative.
The Manure Knowledge Kiosk is a platform for knowledge exchange, outreach and capacity building on integrated manure management. The kiosk is supported by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC...
