News » Comparing manure management to reducing livestock numbers

The EU-funded (Horizon2020) TRANSrisk projectis comparing two possible transition pathways to reduce theenvironmental impacts of livestock production in the Netherlands:reduction of livestock numbers or integrated manure management (IMM).The project indicates that livestock production represents 3% ofNetherlands GDP, so that reducing livestock numbers would haveconsiderable economic impacts. At the same time, significant action isneeded to reduce agricultural environmental impacts are recognised to beneeded, including greenhouse emissions, ammonia emissions andphosphates. Mature management is expected to have cost impacts forfarmers, to offer the benefit of increasing renewable energy production(anaerobic digestion of manure to produce biogas), and may have somenegative side-effects (e.g. reduced animal grazing time, as farmersoptimise in-stable manure production to input to biogas). Livestockreduction may not have anticipated positive results if production issimply transferred to other regions of the world. Farmers, manuremanagers, bioenergy actors and other stakeholders are invited to contactthe project to participate.