Managing Manure on Small Farms Agri-View: Livestock News

The United States Department of Agriculture defines any operation that sells at least $1,000 of agricultural products in a year as a farm. Small farms across the nation include anything from a couple horses on several acres to a small dairy operation or feedlot. All small farms, like large farming operations, face challenges to properly manage manure.

Small farms can be placed into a few different categories, said Chris Henry, extension engineer with the University of Nebraska during a recent webcast sponsored by the Livestock and Poultry Environmental Learning Center, as part of extension programs across the nation.

- Residential or lifestyle farms include those where income is made mostly off of the farm.

- Retirement farms are, as suspected, where the operators are retired.

- Limited resource farms are where yearly income is less than $100,000 and the lifestyle of the operators is impoverished.

- Farming occupation/low sales includes farms selling less than $100,000 of agricultural products per year, but are living a good lifestyle.

- Farming occupation/high sales accounts for farms that sell over $100,000 in agricultural products per year, but no more than $249,000 of products. By concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) guidelines, this may be defined as a small/medium operation.

Small farms haven’t historically been regulated in regards to manure handling and are currently not formally regulated in that regard, Henry explained. However, a large number of farms fall into the small farm category. In fact, 71 percent of all beef operations are less than 1,000 head and considered “small”, he noted.

With a smaller number of livestock and less waste, often no formal waste storage and a smaller land base available for grazing, more concentrated livestock areas can have high risks of erosion and polluted runoff from small farms, explained Fred Kelly, resource conservationist with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service.

Other hindrances of proper manure management on small farms include less waste management experiences, closer to neighbors resulting in odor issues and limited budget for manure handling and storage, Kelly explained. Options for alternative manure handling can include things like disposing of manure off-site or composting.

There’s a good opportunity to address underserved clientele on small operations, Henry pointed out. Even small farms can have a manure handling plan n and with many other aspects of life often taking from the farming operation, manure handling needs to be easy for these farms. Small and large farms are not the same; training is needed for educators so they can show the differences that come with different sizes of farming operations.

Most small farms aren’t aware of their manure management obligations and have limited information and financial cost-share resources, Henry noted. “But most of the producers want to do the right thing,” he added.

Nutrient management planning (NMP) on a smaller farm will be simpler, but often there is less information available from the producer, noted Mike Westendorf, extension specialist with Rutgers University. There are often fewer manure samples, less expertise and less time available to focus on manure handling. But, he pointed out, a small farm manager should have a good idea of the risks involved.

Bedding use and the type of bedding used on the farm should be also accounted for in the NMP, Kelly pointed out. Platte maps can be used to design the plan, but “soil testing is still job No. 1 if manure is going to be spread anywhere on a small farm,” he stressed.

Smaller farms typically don’t have a lot of area for spreading and often have to spread on pasture. Those in the business of consulting small farmers with NMPs can at least calculate the nitrogen and phosphorus created with the pounds of manure of the livestock on the farm and assist the farmer with the proper spreading needs, Westendorf said.

General best management practices for operators of small farms include:

- Keep manure storage out of flood plains.

- Limit or control animal access to streams and water.

- Divert clean water from dirty water.

- Use buffers or filter strips to keep manure out of water.

- Spread manure according to an NMP.