Page 14 of articles about environment in Swine news

A new £20 million fund to help rural businesses increase profits and reduce their impact on the environment.

The Australian Government today launched the first methodology to be approved under the Carbon Farming Initiative, which will provide pig farmers with the opportunity to earn carbon credits for reducing methane emissions from manure.

In France, the current legal framework and the nitrates action plans for zones vulnerable to nitrate pollution do not effectively guarantee that this pollution is addressed effectively, as required by EU law. Greece too has a number of failings in this area.

The federal government is backing away from tighter air-quality regulations that generated a controversy over farm dust. On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement that it hopes the action 'finally puts an end to the myth that the agency is planning to expand regulation of farm dust.'

Pigs and cows are to be banned from entering all lakes, streams and rivers in Canterbury in a move to clean up waterways around the most intensive farms in the region.

Does the air smell or not? That question has until now been very difficult to answer. Scientists from Aarhus University will, in collaboration with Infarm A/S, SKOV A/S and the Pig Research Centre under the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, now try and get a handle on the problem by developing a model.

Limits on expansion in Manitoba's hog industry, again meant to reduce phosphorus levels in Lake Winnipeg, will now include a requirement for "advanced environmental practices" on farms before new barns can be built.

Since the beginning of this year a program on measures for restricting and liquidating nitrate pollution from agricultural sources in vulnerable zones came into force. Application period is from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2014 The program is compulsory for all farmers of nitrate vulnerable zones in the country.

The judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit have ruled that the Clean Water Act did not give the EPA the authority to require Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations to obtain discharge permits on the presumption they would discharge pollution to the waters of the state.

Pig industry organizations from around the world are in talks about starting a coordinated international campaign to keep the environmental impact of pork production as low as possible.

The Agrarian Research Institute of the University of Wageningen (LEI) has carried out a study on the estimation of ammonia emissions in 2020. According to data obtained, emissions will reach 100 million kilograms, which, in comparison with 2007, represents a decrease of 20 million kilograms. These figures do not include the use of chemical fertilizers in the greenhouse horticulture sector and the gardening sector, nor co-fermentation.

A Council for Agricultural Science and Technology study on North American air quality has been released, focusing on the topic as it relates to the areas of swine, poultry, dairy and beef farming.

Between 2008 and 2010, SAGARPA has economically supported the installation of 324 bio-digesters on swine and dairy farms, as well as slaughterhouses, resulting in production savings and generating electricity equivalent to 69 giga watts per year, thus preventing the emission of over 1,4 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The pig industry is setting out how it intends to achieve reductions in its environmental impact in a Roadmap just launched by BPEX and partners. The document sets out targets for the reduction of key environmental burdens over the next 10 years.

The Ministry of Economics, Agriculture and Innovation asked LEI to investigate the macro-economic effects of reduced-phosphorous feed. This request was translated into research into the influence of reduced phosphorous feed on the price of pig feeds, the influence on the manure surplus in kilos of phosphate, the effect on the necessary processing capacity of pig manure and the costs savings that this achieves. In addition, the research looked into the risks perceived by the animal feed industry, both for the industry itself and for pig farmers.

The Technological Platform of Sustainable Agriculture presented last week the “Early Indicators of Sustainability in Agriculture and Livestock Farming”.