articles about nitrogen in Articles

Analyzing the swine industry's life cycle and implementing sustainable measures from feeding to processing drives a change towards a more environmentally friendly industry and better animal welfare.

Climate changes have forced governments around the world to enforce legislation to reduce the carbon footprint from all parts of society including pig production.

Controlled crude protein reduction and use of essential amino acids can improve feed efficiency, decrease water consumption, and reduce nitrogen excretion.

The working collective units and processing methods at the European level have been inventoried by country and by process.

Eight years ago, Granja Capdevila Torrent Ramaders started up its biogas production plant using co-digestion and is now an example of economic viability and sustainability.

This article describes different techniques that can be applied, in order of priority, to prevent NH₃ and CH₄ emissions.

In this first article on emissions, Xavier Flotats explains how the main greenhouse gases and ammonia are generated on our farms.

This article provides an example of the cost per ton of CO₂ saved by reducing direct greenhouse gas emissions through daily slurry removal and anaerobic digestion.

We went to visit Piggly, a sustainable farm from an environmental, production, animal welfare, and economic perspective.

Using solar energy to evaporate part of the water from the slurry can be of interest, avoiding volatization of ammonia. Solar drying can be combined with other strategies.

Removing nitrogen from slurry by transforming it into N₂ can be done biologically or by physical-chemical methods, the latter of which are in the experimental phase for slurry.

Although these strategies do not include anaerobic digestion in the combination of processes and therefore do not take advantage of its benefits, they do provide a higher organic matter content in the recovered effluents.

In a surplus situation, the best option is to export the digestate obtained following anaerobic digestion. If the cost of transportation is not affordable, other alternatives should be considered. Here we explain which ones.

Composting pig manure results in a product that can be sold in the organic amendment, horticulture, and gardening market.

Among other things, anaerobic digestion improves the fertilizer quality of slurry and reduces odors and GHG emissions. The choice to use this or not will also depend on the justification of the cost, i.e. whether it allows for energy savings on the farm or whether it provides an income from the sale of the energy generated.

In addition to the environmental benefits, the increased cost of energy and inorganic fertilizers make on-farm biogas production an interesting cost-effective option.