Where there’s muck there’s brass, farmers told

FARMERS learned how to turn pig manure into money at a seminar on the findings of a three-year research project in Teagasc Moorepark in Fermoy, Co Cork.

The high nutritional value of the pig waste makes it an ideal fertiliser, while it also contains huge quantities of methane, which can be captured and used as a solid biofuel.

The seminar offered guidance on how best to capture the manure’s nutrient content, as well as introductions on anaerobic digestion and other skills. The event was the culmination of a Department of Agriculture -funded project on alternative uses for pig manure.

Dr Peadar Lawlor of Teagasc Moorepark said: “While the research showed the technologies on display may all have potential, the ultimate home for the nutrients in the manure [whether treated or untreated] was on land to supply nutrients for crop growth. The application of untreated pig manure on land is the most cost-effective method of using pig manure in Ireland for the foreseeable future.”

The Moorepark seminar featured talks from leading research personnel in Teagasc, NUI Galway, AFBI Northern Ireland, Waterford Institute of Technology and the University of Limerick, who presented their findings from the research project.

Pilot-scale demonstrations on the technologies were accompanied by short presentations from the project team. The technologies included anaerobic digestion, separation of pig manure, composting, use of pig manure as a solid biofuel, the use of integrated constructed wetlands and woodchip filters, and bio-safety aspects of manure treatments.

Dr Lawlor said: “While the cost analysis presented showed that the technologies investigated are not currently cost-effective, they may have future potential. For example, anaerobic digestion could be cost effective on large units [2,000 sows plus], or if centralised treatment plants were developed and if the renewable feed-in tariff for energy sold to the grid was increased.”

Tereza Cota-Nolan, Teagasc Moorepark, presented the economics of each technology studied. Pig manure has a significant fertiliser value (€6.13 per m3 or €28 per 1,000 gallons), as evident on the board prepared by Gerard McCutcheon of Teagasc Oak Park.