Nitrogen and phosphorus excretion calculator tool for pigs and poultry

Descriptions

"The Environment Agency regulates and advises on various aspects of the agriculture sector including large-scale intensive pig and poultry units through the Environmental Permitting Regulations. Environmental permits are required for farms with more than 40,000 poultry places, more than 2,000 production pig places or more than 750 sow places. This regulatory regime ensures that emissions from these activities do not have an unacceptable impact on nearby protected habitat sites, nor contribute excessively to the national inventory of emissions. Permitted farms are required to meet the Best Available Techniques (BAT) Conclusions for the Intensive Rearing of Poultry or Pigs (IRPP) sector. The latest version of this document was published in 2017 (available here) and sets out new requirements to monitor and report emissions from permitted farms for comparison with the BAT-associated levels. This included a requirement for all operators to report emissions of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) excreted in livestock manures on an annual basis. This project links to this BAT requirement to report N and P emissions and the need for additional support for operators to enable accurate calculations of livestock N and P emissions in livestock manures. The implementation of the 2017 Best Available Techniques (BAT) conclusions for the IRPP sector required operators to monitor total nitrogen (N) and total phosphate (P) excreted in livestock manures and report these emissions on an annual basis. The BAT associated excretion level is expressed as Kg N or P2O5 excreted/animal place/year. The BAT conclusions provide two available techniques for measuring N and P emissions in livestock manures; one being manure analysis and the other being calculation by using a mass balance of nitrogen and phosphorus based on feed intake, crude protein and total phosphorus content of the diet, and animal performance. We are seeking specialist technical knowledge to understand the most appropriate calculation method based on the mass balance technique highlighted in the BAT conclusions and develop a simple tool. The purpose of this project is to develop a simple calculator tool to assist operators with the calculation of N and P excretion to enable them to accurately report these emissions to the Environment Agency for compliance checks against the BAT-associated total N/P excretion levels. "