The Human Dimensions of Manureshed Management

Gwendwr Meredith, assistant professor, School of Natural Resources, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Center for Resilience in Agricultural Working Landscapes, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Author

03/03/2022 Added

13 Plays

Description

Manuresheds prioritize nutrient recycling between livestock and cropping systems but are dependent on collaboration of many actors. This seminar presents the current state of manureshed management, how can it be improved upon, and what social relationships need to be in place to facilitate this aspirational vision.

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[00:00:00.800]The following presentation is part of
[00:00:02.780]the Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar Series
[00:00:05.840]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:08.210]And welcome to today's session
[00:00:11.240]of the spring 2022 Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar Series.
[00:00:16.580]My name is Dan Uden and I'm an assistant professor
[00:00:19.490]in UNL's School of Natural Resources,
[00:00:22.500]as well as Department of Agronomy and Horticulture
[00:00:25.430]and Center for Resilience
[00:00:27.280]in Agricultural Working Landscapes.
[00:00:29.720]This afternoon, it's my pleasure to introduce my colleague,
[00:00:33.620]Dr. Gwendwr Meredith.
[00:00:35.930]Gwendwr is a social ecological rangeland scientist
[00:00:41.430]also with the School of Natural Resources,
[00:00:43.830]Department of Agronomy and Horticulture,
[00:00:45.650]and Center for Resilience.
[00:00:48.450]Dr. Meredith has a rich background
[00:00:52.910]studying the human dimensions of agroecosystems,
[00:00:56.940]including a lot of experience
[00:00:59.510]with the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research Network.
[00:01:04.210]Without any further ado, I'll turn it over to you, Gwendwr.
[00:01:08.496]Thank you.
[00:01:10.897]Thank you, Dan.
[00:01:12.030]Yes, so as Dan mentioned,
[00:01:14.610]I am going to be talking to you today
[00:01:16.960]about the human dimensions of manuresheds,
[00:01:20.210]and there are three sections of my talk.
[00:01:23.100]I'm going to provide a little bit of background
[00:01:26.310]about what manuresheds are,
[00:01:29.030]then I'm going to segue into some interview data
[00:01:31.720]from beef feedlot operators,
[00:01:34.060]particularly barriers and opportunities
[00:01:37.110]for manure nutrient recycling that I discussed with them,
[00:01:41.050]and then I'm going to talk about
[00:01:43.120]the social networks of manuresheds,
[00:01:45.820]so thinking about who all needs to be engaged and with whom
[00:01:50.700]for functioning manureshed management, but to do that,
[00:01:55.270]you probably want a definition
[00:01:57.010]of what a manureshed really is,
[00:01:59.770]and that's the lands surrounding animal feeding operations
[00:02:04.870]onto which manure nutrients can be redistributed
[00:02:07.720]to meet environmental, production and socioeconomic goals.
[00:02:13.566]Manuresheds are managed on a variety of spatial scales,
[00:02:17.430]from the extreme local scale,
[00:02:20.180]where you can think of an integrated crop
[00:02:22.200]and livestock operation that distributes manure
[00:02:25.140]across pastures that they own and manage,
[00:02:28.290]to the national scale,
[00:02:31.460]where complex supply chain management may be required
[00:02:34.830]for the functioning of a manureshed.
[00:02:37.510]In all of these scales,
[00:02:38.680]actors are embedded within complex social systems
[00:02:43.260]and they're impacted by widely varying processes.
[00:02:46.680]Relationships outside of just the one
[00:02:49.640]between livestock and crop farmers
[00:02:51.560]are affecting what practices are feasible.
[00:02:54.470]We tend to think about manure nutrient distribution
[00:02:57.990]as happening between, say, a crop and a livestock producer,
[00:03:02.380]but there's a whole lot of other interactions
[00:03:04.960]happening behind the scene that have direct
[00:03:06.910]or indirect impacts on that manure nutrient cycling.
[00:03:13.240]First, I want to mention the context of this research.
[00:03:17.190]It's embedded within the LTAR Network
[00:03:20.200]and Long-Term Agroecosystem Research Network,
[00:03:23.410]of which some of you on the call might be associated with
[00:03:27.290]'cause there's a site right here.
[00:03:29.050]People are based at
[00:03:30.160]the Platte River High Plains Aquifer site.
[00:03:33.040]This map here on the left side of the screen
[00:03:36.950]is showing you the 18 LTAR sites,
[00:03:42.090]and the tan color are grazing land sites,
[00:03:45.740]the green are cropland sites,
[00:03:47.667]and the blue are integrated crop and livestock systems,
[00:03:52.640]and one of the goals of the LTAR Network broadly
[00:03:55.450]is to examine business-as-usual practices
[00:03:58.260]in comparison to more sustainable aspirational practices,
[00:04:02.410]and so there are at least 10 sites,
[00:04:04.510]including Agri-Food Canada,
[00:04:07.160]that are working on manure nutrient cycling questions,
[00:04:12.290]and here in a sec, I'm gonna talk about
[00:04:15.360]talking to beef feedlot producers,
[00:04:18.130]but the folks at the manuresheds working group
[00:04:21.030]and people more broadly working on this problem
[00:04:22.920]are not just focused on beef manure.
[00:04:26.180]It's also dairy, swine, poultry,
[00:04:28.940]and even biosolids, so that human component.
[00:04:33.330]I got involved in this work
[00:04:35.370]during my postdoc with the LTAR Network,
[00:04:39.590]and specifically in my work, again,
[00:04:41.720]with that manuresheds working group.
[00:04:44.080]Here we are in February of 2020 at a dairy operation.
[00:04:48.730]The manureshed concept is really well outlined
[00:04:52.200]in this paper that the working group put out in 2020.
[00:04:57.170]If you want more detail about just what manuresheds are
[00:05:00.180]and how that's determined, this is a great resource.
[00:05:04.500]From this paper, for example,
[00:05:06.130]they identified some manuresheds at a large regional scale
[00:05:12.850]focused on different sectors of industry
[00:05:16.980]and their spatial extent based off of
[00:05:19.870]phosphorous sinks and sources,
[00:05:24.040]but where I come in is really more of
[00:05:27.680]the human dimensions behind nutrient cycling
[00:05:31.370]and that's where I think there's a lot of work
[00:05:34.040]still that's required.
[00:05:36.181]They also work hard on the other components,
[00:05:38.110]don't get me wrong,
[00:05:39.120]but that's really where this talk begins,
[00:05:42.620]and this focus on manuresheds really evolved
[00:05:47.430]out of this understanding that there is
[00:05:49.660]this historical uncoupling of livestock and crop production
[00:05:54.440]that presents one of the great challenges
[00:05:57.170]facing the sustainability of our modern agroecosystems.
[00:06:02.690]Recycling manure nutrients presents an important objective
[00:06:08.740]in recoupling livestock and crop nutrient cycles.
[00:06:12.650]In addition with prudent manure application,
[00:06:17.940]it has a potential to increase soil nutrient availability
[00:06:21.670]and support soil health and regenerative agriculture.
[00:06:26.190]However, I would be remiss without mentioning
[00:06:29.140]some concerns or potential cons about the use of manure,
[00:06:34.064]such as phosphorus and nitrogen leaching and runoff,
[00:06:36.830]the impact of manure application
[00:06:38.450]on greenhouse gas emissions and air quality,
[00:06:41.110]impacts on soil carbon,
[00:06:43.460]potential weed dissemination from the manure product,
[00:06:46.670]and so there are people in the manureshed working group
[00:06:50.140]and broadly across the world
[00:06:52.400]that are taking a closer look at those questions,
[00:06:55.870]but overall I would say our objective
[00:06:58.770]is to examine the potential for manuresheds solutions
[00:07:03.570]and part of that is examining
[00:07:05.670]what the current barriers are to producers.
[00:07:09.240]The proper redistribution of concentrated feedlot manure
[00:07:13.090]can potentially supply a viable substitute
[00:07:16.420]for expensive commercial fertilizers into the future.
[00:07:20.440]We're in the finishing stages of writing up this paper,
[00:07:25.210]but if you look, see the figure here,
[00:07:28.890]in this study, we use the manureshed concept
[00:07:31.610]to explore opportunities and challenges
[00:07:34.160]for three approaches to circular manure management
[00:07:37.660]in North American beef supply chains.
[00:07:40.280]One approach reflecting,
[00:07:42.640]it reflects the status quo based off of interviews
[00:07:45.760]of manure managers at large feedlots,
[00:07:48.270]and the two alternative hypothetical approaches
[00:07:51.870]are regional and then more like international in scope.
[00:07:55.690]The regional nutrient circularity
[00:08:01.350]is at a larger geographic scale obviously than the local one
[00:08:05.980]and larger than what's currently happening,
[00:08:07.777]and the other hypothetical approach
[00:08:11.960]would be examining circularity
[00:08:13.510]at a more industry-scale level,
[00:08:15.930]so returning manure nutrients to pasture
[00:08:18.630]and potentially rangeland that was utilized
[00:08:21.760]at earlier life stages.
[00:08:23.600]Think to a cow calf operation.
[00:08:27.930]In fall of of 2020,
[00:08:30.780]I interviewed feedlot operators at,
[00:08:35.690]feedlot managers at 10 of the 20 largest US feedlots.
[00:08:40.870]We contacted all of the 20 largest US feedlots
[00:08:45.340]and had a response rate of 50%,
[00:08:47.570]which for social science and an interview
[00:08:50.410]about their manure management was pretty good.
[00:08:54.129]I talked with them about a lotta things
[00:08:57.060]but mainly about their solid manure management.
[00:09:00.170]For those that aren't familiar,
[00:09:01.610]solid manure management typically entails
[00:09:04.170]scraping and transferring manure
[00:09:06.740]from pens to stockpiles at varying intervals,
[00:09:10.510]and some managers remove manure from those pens seasonally
[00:09:15.700]while others conduct more frequent removal,
[00:09:17.990]and obviously weather plays into that too.
[00:09:20.680]Half the companies actively compost their stockpiled solids
[00:09:25.490]and the rest allowed those stockpiles to dry
[00:09:27.940]without much treatment.
[00:09:30.580]Perhaps not surprisingly,
[00:09:32.990]most of the manure from these 10 large feedlot companies
[00:09:38.340]were being distributed,
[00:09:40.420]that manure was being distributed within 16 kilometers,
[00:09:43.060]often even closer.
[00:09:45.740]You see this quote here in orange from a feedlot operator
[00:09:49.170]in the South Central region of the US
[00:09:50.910]and they're estimating probably about 10 miles,
[00:09:54.600]probably even more like five,
[00:09:56.670]and that came up pretty frequently.
[00:09:59.180]I think the one kind of outlier
[00:10:02.860]was one company mentioned they have two alfalfa farmers
[00:10:06.500]that will come from about 50 miles away
[00:10:08.870]to come pick up the manure,
[00:10:11.270]but that is by no means normal.
[00:10:14.520]It's usually being distributed within a couple miles
[00:10:16.840]of the feedlot because of transport costs.
[00:10:20.660]I talked to them about potentially their barriers
[00:10:23.920]to getting rid of the manure on their operation
[00:10:26.400]and what the barriers are for further transport distances,
[00:10:32.450]and so obviously freight was a big part of that,
[00:10:35.720]as this individual, this green block shows,
[00:10:40.560]green box shows.
[00:10:42.810]You're limited to how many miles away
[00:10:44.260]from the feed yard you can take it
[00:10:45.820]'cause it can be very, it can be a wet product,
[00:10:48.780]and another barrier that came up from folks
[00:10:52.700]was potential regulation that makes it harder
[00:10:57.710]to get rid of their manure nutrients.
[00:11:01.390]From this individual's perspective
[00:11:04.350]here in this orange box they're mentioning that,
[00:11:06.637]"A farmer can purchase as much commercial fertilizer
[00:11:08.930]as they want and put it wherever they want
[00:11:11.220]and they don't have to fill out a single form,
[00:11:12.940]but if they take a pound of my manure,
[00:11:14.630]I have to give them pages of paperwork
[00:11:16.520]and occasionally have them sign off on stuff
[00:11:18.300]and give us information.
[00:11:20.200]There's a disincentive from their standpoint
[00:11:22.270]to take anything.
[00:11:23.230]As soon as they are regulated,
[00:11:24.640]they start to find ways to avoid it
[00:11:26.130]and one of the ways to avoid it is to not take the manure."
[00:11:30.880]I didn't just talk to them about barriers.
[00:11:33.390]I also talked to them about opportunities
[00:11:35.330]for increasing manure nutrient cycling,
[00:11:38.960]and so some of the biggest opportunities that came up
[00:11:42.660]were either market-based incentives
[00:11:45.210]and/or technology improvements.
[00:11:48.490]In green, this block, this is on a smaller scale,
[00:11:52.790]but they may mention that they have a Compost Days
[00:11:56.220]where just local individuals can come with their pickup,
[00:12:00.140]load up compost, load up manure that's been composted,
[00:12:05.330]and take it to their gardens and their yards free of charge,
[00:12:09.819]but they mentioned that they don't know
[00:12:11.460]how to go commercial on that
[00:12:13.320]and they don't know how to grow that market,
[00:12:16.240]and so potentially getting into
[00:12:19.450]the bagged fertilizer realm where your product is being sold
[00:12:23.980]at home improvement stores like Home Depot
[00:12:26.280]and Lowe's is one outlet.
[00:12:27.680]With the amount of manure that these operations produce,
[00:12:31.230]that still might not be taking care of
[00:12:34.450]all the manure that they're producing,
[00:12:36.170]but it is one potential outlet
[00:12:38.910]to more widely disperse the product.
[00:12:42.240]Another is, so here in this orange box,
[00:12:45.860]this reads kind of as a barrier,
[00:12:47.270]but I think embedded within that is an opportunity.
[00:12:50.290]They mention that basically when fertilizer prices are high,
[00:12:55.660]as this individual mentions,
[00:12:57.407]"Manure sounds really damn good
[00:12:59.340]because you can buy it for a dollar or two a ton,"
[00:13:04.120]and so that could be, if that were to change,
[00:13:07.330]there could be a market-based incentive there for manure.
[00:13:10.070]That could be something that also creates a shift,
[00:13:13.950]and obviously technology improvements
[00:13:17.770]and standardizing or potentially pelletizing manure came up.
[00:13:22.590]I think this producer,
[00:13:24.530]this feedlot operator from the South Central region
[00:13:27.030]hit the nail on the head when they said,
[00:13:29.187]"Nitrogen and phosphorus is valuable in this country,
[00:13:31.970]in our food production system,
[00:13:33.690]so if there's a way that we can participate greater
[00:13:36.490]and more efficiently in those markets,
[00:13:39.300]pelletizing, or however you take the nitrogen and phosphorus
[00:13:42.770]that are common in manure and refine that
[00:13:45.690]and allow us to transport it greater distances,
[00:13:48.370]that would be something all of us are interested in,"
[00:13:52.270]and so I want you to keep thinking about
[00:13:55.060]some of those barriers and opportunities
[00:13:57.120]on the back burner of your brains as we transition
[00:14:00.570]to now the second substantial part,
[00:14:04.770]I counted the introduction as a part,
[00:14:06.440]so (laughing) the second substantial part of my talk
[00:14:09.210]that's more focused on the social networks of manuresheds.
[00:14:16.414]Who needs to be engaged and what are those connections
[00:14:18.130]between the individuals that need to be engaged?
[00:14:20.620]We're kind of shifting gears here,
[00:14:22.430]but we're still sticking with the theme
[00:14:24.100]of human dimensions research,
[00:14:26.480]specifically looking at social networks
[00:14:29.860]or those connections between entities
[00:14:32.550]that are needed for functioning manuresheds.
[00:14:38.000]If any of this piques your interest,
[00:14:40.260]you can find more details here
[00:14:43.290]within this environmental issues paper
[00:14:45.810]in the "Journal of Environmental Quality,"
[00:14:49.409]and so this just got accepted earlier this month,
[00:14:54.270]so we're excited about it.
[00:14:56.430]These are my co-authors here
[00:14:58.920]and they were a big part of this process,
[00:15:02.020]which I will explain here shortly.
[00:15:07.636]Manuresheds, as I mentioned,
[00:15:09.560]are managed on a variety of spatial scales.
[00:15:12.640]That's the local scale,
[00:15:14.430]where you have an integrated crop and livestock operation
[00:15:17.270]that distributes manure across pastures
[00:15:19.890]that they own and manage,
[00:15:21.780]to that national scale that would require
[00:15:25.070]more complex supply chain management solutions,
[00:15:28.900]and in all of these scales,
[00:15:30.810]actors are embedded within complex social systems,
[00:15:34.120]whether they realize it or not,
[00:15:35.760]and they're being impacted by widely varying processes.
[00:15:38.710]Relationships outside of just the one
[00:15:41.010]between a livestock and a crop farmer
[00:15:43.270]are affecting what practices are feasible.
[00:15:49.210]This green circle is roughly a table.
[00:15:52.060]My artistic skills are not great,
[00:15:55.450]and so if you think of this cow over here
[00:15:58.610]as maybe representing feedlots,
[00:16:00.740]this corn cob over here is representing crop farmers,
[00:16:06.994]so the connections we often think of,
[00:16:08.460]but there's also this wheelbarrow here of manure. (laughing)
[00:16:13.330]Those are your contract manure applicators,
[00:16:17.550]manure haulers and composters, manure brokers.
[00:16:23.440]Also, that's really important at regional scales,
[00:16:27.140]but there's also individuals that you don't necessarily
[00:16:29.620]think of that are affecting manure management,
[00:16:31.730]so recreationists, for instance,
[00:16:34.400]that would be near where the manure is being spread.
[00:16:37.400]There's also fertilizer facilities
[00:16:40.520]that would be important to scale up
[00:16:44.720]manure nutrient distribution,
[00:16:47.220]but they're also kind of a competitor
[00:16:48.950]making commercial fertilizers too.
[00:16:52.280]There are obviously the,
[00:16:53.400]there's the slaughter facilities as well,
[00:16:56.450]processing facilities,
[00:16:57.840]and there are the consumers themselves.
[00:17:03.650]Using a modified Delphi process,
[00:17:07.530]we, meaning myself and the co-authors of that paper,
[00:17:12.000]we determined groups of actors
[00:17:14.430]engaged in manureshed management
[00:17:17.000]from the literature and from our prior experience
[00:17:20.900]and determined what connections exist
[00:17:22.840]ideally between those actors at the local,
[00:17:26.610]the very on-farm scale, the local off-farm scale,
[00:17:31.120]regional, so really broadening out there,
[00:17:33.450]and then national scales, more aspirational,
[00:17:37.430]not currently really happening.
[00:17:41.140]We are evaluating who needs to be at the table,
[00:17:44.240]this beautiful green table,
[00:17:46.040]and what connections between those groups
[00:17:48.510]are necessary for functioning manuresheds.
[00:17:53.770]The actor categories we identified,
[00:17:56.340]and I don't expect you to remember this,
[00:17:58.610]but it might be hard to see the font here,
[00:18:02.320]the actor categories we identified are producers.
[00:18:07.170]Producers here, this is at a broad level.
[00:18:10.530]That is crop and forage producers,
[00:18:12.300]that's livestock producers and even integrated operations.
[00:18:17.210]There's also contractors, for example, manure applicators,
[00:18:21.400]the manure treatment industry,
[00:18:23.580]so composters and those that transform manure
[00:18:26.660]into a product applied to the field,
[00:18:29.200]advisors and consultants, for example, feed consultants,
[00:18:33.570]consumers, obviously,
[00:18:35.840]regulatory and action agencies,
[00:18:39.810]housing and retail developers,
[00:18:42.420]scientists and manure nutrients
[00:18:45.480]or manure nutrient management,
[00:18:47.850]extension, NGOs,
[00:18:51.580]recreationists, feed companies,
[00:18:54.640]fertilizer distributors, animal processors,
[00:18:57.770]and alternative energy producers, and so again,
[00:19:02.840]there are probably more actors that you could identify,
[00:19:06.450]and this is at a broad level
[00:19:09.190]that we're just trying to get that conversation started
[00:19:11.760]about who really needs to be involved
[00:19:13.550]to implement manuresheds and who needs to be involved
[00:19:16.790]at what scales with whom.
[00:19:20.630]Next, we're going to look at
[00:19:21.870]some aspirational social networks for each of these scales
[00:19:25.080]to further dive into how actors could interact
[00:19:28.700]at these scales.
[00:19:30.480]Don't worry about understanding this figure quite yet,
[00:19:33.620]we'll dive in deeper, but this network shows the connections
[00:19:36.260]between different actors impacting manuresheds.
[00:19:40.220]Some of these actors are obviously
[00:19:41.590]more influential than others
[00:19:43.810]and the strength of these connections
[00:19:46.170]at different scales also matters.
[00:19:49.160]Next, we're going to stay with this figure,
[00:19:51.340]but we're gonna focus in on the local on-farm scale
[00:19:55.700]and the actors most impacting that scale.
[00:20:00.590]Taking a look at this figure, there's black
[00:20:04.670]and purple connections.
[00:20:08.453]Once we go to local on-farm,
[00:20:11.000]there's fewer of those must and should connections
[00:20:15.670]that need to occur for this kind of
[00:20:17.720]very local on-farm manure management,
[00:20:20.360]but they're still embedded within that context.
[00:20:26.210]We consider manure management at the local scale
[00:20:30.770]to be coordinated either within an operation,
[00:20:33.920]so on-farm, or between close neighbors,
[00:20:37.550]which I'll discuss more on the next slide.
[00:20:39.480]That'd be local off-farm.
[00:20:42.380]For livestock operations with integrated farmland,
[00:20:45.270]manure management can sometimes be coordinated
[00:20:48.530]all within the farm gate.
[00:20:50.180]Following best practices, those producers are assessing
[00:20:53.550]soil fertility and crop requirements,
[00:20:56.280]evaluating environmental risks,
[00:20:58.220]considering factors including weather,
[00:21:00.320]labor or contractor availability, manure storage,
[00:21:05.300]their access to their fields and neighbors.
[00:21:09.660]However, often operations with sufficient cropland
[00:21:13.260]to evenly distribute manure nutrients
[00:21:15.320]may have experienced historical manure application practices
[00:21:19.970]that have led to an excess of manure in some areas,
[00:21:22.580]particularly where it's easy
[00:21:24.010]to accumulate manure nutrients,
[00:21:25.470]near barns and manure sources,
[00:21:27.740]and have not met crop needs in other areas
[00:21:29.970]of their operation.
[00:21:33.080]The contribution of cooperative extension
[00:21:36.830]and consultants would really improve management
[00:21:39.360]within this on-farm manureshed.
[00:21:42.170]Further, the engagement of specialized contractors
[00:21:46.040]may help to overcome certain labor
[00:21:48.320]and technological constraints facing operators.
[00:21:53.380]This figure displays the complex social system
[00:21:56.710]in which livestock producers with integrated farmland
[00:21:59.940]make on-farm manure management decisions.
[00:22:03.340]At this scale, collaboration is not needed
[00:22:06.520]with other landowners, at least for manure management,
[00:22:10.890]but mostly amongst the labor force
[00:22:12.620]of a single operation instead
[00:22:14.760]and between producers
[00:22:18.689]and their advisors and consultants.
[00:22:21.040]Here we have the core relationships colored black,
[00:22:24.360]the important connections colored purple,
[00:22:27.480]the could connections are yellow,
[00:22:29.990]and everything else, that social context is,
[00:22:35.110]those are peripheral, more peripheral relationships
[00:22:37.390]and those are in gray,
[00:22:38.990]and as we go up in scale, this is local off-farm.
[00:22:42.490]If I swivel back to on-farm, you can see what it looks like.
[00:22:46.610]You don't obviously have to remember
[00:22:48.530]where all the connections are.
[00:22:49.640]These nodes are staying in place with each network,
[00:22:52.460]but you can see overall there are more of
[00:22:54.840]these should relationships happening
[00:22:56.730]at the local off-farm scale.
[00:22:59.210]As we go up in scale,
[00:23:01.500]more of these actors are going to be important
[00:23:03.850]and as you can see here at the local off-farm scale.
[00:23:09.000]A lot of manure management is happening at the local scale,
[00:23:12.770]whether that's local on-farm or off-farm,
[00:23:17.200]and by off-farm, I mean about 5 to 20 kilometers
[00:23:21.400]away from the manure source,
[00:23:23.410]and so that's what we saw from talking
[00:23:25.380]to beef feedlot companies.
[00:23:28.960]That was often the travel distances
[00:23:30.820]they expected their manure to be traveling,
[00:23:35.050]the manure from their feedlots,
[00:23:37.260]and obviously a big difference between this scale
[00:23:41.760]and the last, the on-farm scale,
[00:23:44.500]is the need for connections amongst
[00:23:46.270]the producers themselves,
[00:23:48.040]so connections that facilitate manure redistribution
[00:23:51.890]like those between livestock and crop producers.
[00:23:54.350]That's this arc that is coming out of the producer node
[00:23:58.090]and back in.
[00:23:59.280]That is to represent that there are those connections
[00:24:01.780]just amongst producers.
[00:24:03.170]To simplify, we just said producers.
[00:24:05.250]Obviously there is a whole lot of nuance
[00:24:07.880]and subgroups within that.
[00:24:10.250]That's why of all the nodes we chose
[00:24:12.850]to have a reflexive tie between, it was producers.
[00:24:15.790]You can see, especially at this local off-farm scale,
[00:24:18.120]how important those relationships are,
[00:24:21.370]but also the presence of other producers
[00:24:23.350]and land development in the surrounding area at this scale
[00:24:26.500]can really affect the amount of arable land
[00:24:30.850]producers have available for manure application.
[00:24:34.470]Plus, if there's more housing
[00:24:36.090]and retail development happening in an area,
[00:24:38.440]that can then spur concerns about manure odor,
[00:24:41.840]and of course there are regulations
[00:24:44.190]that are protecting air, water and soil quality
[00:24:46.820]that impact manure spreading.
[00:24:48.410]There's an influence from the regulatory
[00:24:51.140]and action agencies in particular.
[00:24:55.492]When we think about manure spreading and the regulations,
[00:24:57.650]there's the quantity, timing, method,
[00:25:00.820]and location of manure spreading is all something
[00:25:04.070]that farmers are taking into consideration,
[00:25:07.070]and again, here in this diagram,
[00:25:10.100]we have the core relationships colored black,
[00:25:12.740]important colored purple,
[00:25:14.870]the relationships that could strengthen nutrient cycling
[00:25:17.560]but aren't as critical are,
[00:25:20.070]the could relationships are yellow,
[00:25:22.100]and everything else, that social context that's happening
[00:25:25.030]at higher scales is gray.
[00:25:28.603]Here's an example, a published example from Denmark.
[00:25:32.210]Obviously local-scale manuresheds are everywhere,
[00:25:35.440]but this one is published so that's why we talk about it.
[00:25:39.150]Concern over nitrogen leaching into aquatic environments
[00:25:43.210]led Denmark to designate all lands
[00:25:45.600]as nitrate vulnerable zones,
[00:25:49.370]I'll try to sum this up as quickly as possible, I'm sorry,
[00:25:51.631](laughing) resulting in collaborative manureshed management
[00:25:55.500]that now offers us some insight
[00:25:57.660]into local-scale actors and processes.
[00:26:00.657]A little bit of background on this.
[00:26:02.270]In 1991, Denmark instituted
[00:26:05.270]mandatory farm nitrogen quotas
[00:26:07.850]determined from the assimilative capacity of crops
[00:26:10.820]and the nitrogen content of livestock manure
[00:26:13.150]or commercial fertilizer.
[00:26:15.670]To be in compliance, crop producers need to provide
[00:26:18.790]detailed records to regulatory authorities
[00:26:21.190]on manure and commercial fertilizers produced,
[00:26:24.550]received, provided and applied,
[00:26:27.600]and the regulations have pushed livestock producers
[00:26:30.210]who were exceeding the assimilative capacity
[00:26:32.150]of their farmland to form partnerships
[00:26:34.530]with crop farmers needing nutrients.
[00:26:37.790]In this case, more that mandatory top-down regulations,
[00:26:41.840]that it resulted in collaboration
[00:26:44.590]among crop and livestock farmers,
[00:26:46.330]although who partners with whom is obviously not mandated,
[00:26:50.750]so a survey was conducted to determine the nature
[00:26:55.120]of those collaborative relationships,
[00:26:57.240]and they found four different types
[00:27:00.480]of collaborative arrangements at this local scale:
[00:27:04.120]business partnerships, stable partnerships,
[00:27:06.890]neighbor partners and local network partners.
[00:27:12.240]Business partnerships were mainly formed
[00:27:16.380]through professional networks and focus on sheer economics,
[00:27:21.890]and so communication between partners is pretty minimal,
[00:27:25.180]but manure actually travels longer distances
[00:27:27.620]than in the other types of arrangements,
[00:27:29.860]and stable partnerships, that's typically going to,
[00:27:34.110]that's a relationship between close,
[00:27:37.020]it's a close relationship between partners
[00:27:39.190]mainly via family or close neighbors
[00:27:41.650]with frequent communication, but as a result,
[00:27:44.760]that manure's typically traveling much shorter distances,
[00:27:48.370]and the neighbor partnerships that they identified
[00:27:51.980]were the most common, at least within this study,
[00:27:54.800]and they're characterized by relatively
[00:27:56.500]infrequent communication, but manure's traveling,
[00:28:01.140]and the manure is traveling shorter distances.
[00:28:05.450]Lastly, the local network partners.
[00:28:08.570]Those are pretty recent relationships.
[00:28:11.030]There's pretty frequent communication,
[00:28:13.270]more so than the neighbor partners,
[00:28:15.490]but the manure's traveling further distances,
[00:28:18.300]but not as far as manure transfer in business partnerships,
[00:28:23.530]but notably all partnership types,
[00:28:26.890]including the business partnerships, were mainly local,
[00:28:30.810]in that 70% of producers reported
[00:28:34.100]that the manure traveled to fields
[00:28:35.970]less than five kilometers away
[00:28:38.510]from where manure was produced.
[00:28:40.670]Additionally, the vast majority of producers
[00:28:44.781]already knew their partners prior to establishing
[00:28:47.360]the collaborative arrangement.
[00:28:50.795]This Danish example just showcases
[00:28:53.830]the type of local-scale partnerships,
[00:28:56.090]goes into much more detail than what the networks show,
[00:28:59.780]kinda hone in on the actual types of connections
[00:29:03.370]that could be present between individuals,
[00:29:06.040]and in this case, those connections were top down.
[00:29:11.130]It was more of a top-down regulatory approach
[00:29:13.550]that highlights the influence that policymakers can have
[00:29:17.310]on producers' manure management decisions,
[00:29:20.920]and scaling up now, so if we,
[00:29:24.000]I'm gonna give you whiplash here,
[00:29:25.650]go back to look at what the local
[00:29:27.470]off-farm network looked like,
[00:29:29.590]just look at what the colors are, and then in regional,
[00:29:33.330]you see more of an explosion of those must
[00:29:37.080]and should connections that appear at this regional scale.
[00:29:42.450]Manure management at regional scales
[00:29:44.970]involves many of the same actors
[00:29:48.140]as local small-scale partnerships,
[00:29:50.570]but just the strength of those connections
[00:29:53.050]needs to be greater and the burden of forming
[00:29:56.310]those connections across nutrient surplus and sink areas
[00:30:00.550]at these regional scales falls primarily upon
[00:30:04.090]manure processors, manure haulers and brokers,
[00:30:10.200]and contract manure applicators.
[00:30:14.711]For manuresheds that extend to the regional scale,
[00:30:18.230]connecting livestock with producers
[00:30:20.520]is more of a challenge than at the local scale.
[00:30:24.124]Word of mouth transactions that were fine
[00:30:26.900]at the local scale are insufficient,
[00:30:31.450]typically, at a regional scale.
[00:30:33.890]Independent brokers are needed
[00:30:35.360]to connect livestock producers with excess manure nutrients
[00:30:39.180]and crop producers in need of manure fertilizer.
[00:30:42.700]Once again, producers are embedded
[00:30:45.510]in a complex social context.
[00:30:48.520]The ratio of livestock to crop producers within a region
[00:30:53.280]impacts the manureshed dynamics.
[00:30:56.450]If we think about if there's a lotta crop producers
[00:30:59.330]per livestock operator,
[00:31:01.920]there may be actual competition for manure nutrients,
[00:31:05.640]and from the first half of my talk,
[00:31:08.470]when I mentioned speaking with beef feedlot operators,
[00:31:12.360]that was something that came up.
[00:31:17.629]Several of them mentioned high local farmer demand
[00:31:22.090]as a key reason manure nutrients
[00:31:24.100]were not actually traveling further,
[00:31:26.360]and because the manure nutrients
[00:31:28.500]are perceived as a limited resource,
[00:31:30.330]at least one prominent feedlot company
[00:31:32.640]chose to only arrange manure transfer to farmers
[00:31:35.410]that either sell them grain or have cattle fed with them.
[00:31:41.100]On the flip side, if we think about
[00:31:43.730]when there's few crop producers per livestock operation,
[00:31:47.040]manure's going to be less valued
[00:31:48.640]and it needs to then be sold by the livestock producer.
[00:31:54.250]It's already kind of a externality.
[00:31:56.540]It's already kind of a cost to the feedlot,
[00:32:00.310]but if they have to actually sell it, it's even more so
[00:32:05.499]and/or just hauled further away.
[00:32:09.950]Similar to local scale manuresheds,
[00:32:14.300]obviously at the regional scale,
[00:32:15.640]policymakers and regulations can directly influence
[00:32:19.300]manure management practices in regional manuresheds,
[00:32:23.050]and policymakers don't act within a vacuum.
[00:32:27.370]That connection is two-way.
[00:32:29.150]This is why at this regional scale, you really see,
[00:32:32.450]there are producers, but there's also recreationists, NGOs,
[00:32:36.070]housing and retail developers and consumers
[00:32:38.880]that are all influencing rules governing manure use.
[00:32:42.970]To effect change
[00:32:46.390]at the scale of a regional manureshed,
[00:32:48.650]all of the actors that I've just mentioned and more,
[00:32:51.350]as you can see in this figure,
[00:32:53.330]need to be engaged, need to be involved.
[00:33:00.187]This is a bit of a complicated example, but I'll do my best.
[00:33:03.330]An example of a regional-scale manureshed
[00:33:05.720]comes to us from the Arkansas, Oklahoma area,
[00:33:08.710]and basically in the early 2000s,
[00:33:11.130]there were a lot of growing poultry operations
[00:33:13.100]in Northwestern Arkansas,
[00:33:14.910]and that led the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
[00:33:16.970]and the attorney general of Oklahoma to file lawsuits
[00:33:19.630]against Arkansas's upstream poultry producers,
[00:33:22.960]and imposition of phosphorus management standards
[00:33:26.230]through a court settlement agreement required there to be
[00:33:29.900]lesser rates of litter or dry manure application to farmland
[00:33:33.730]in these litigated watersheds.
[00:33:35.630]They had to export at least 33%
[00:33:38.400]of the litter produced by poultry
[00:33:40.100]out of the litigated watersheds.
[00:33:42.930]Because poultry litter has a low moisture content
[00:33:45.450]and high nutrient content per weight,
[00:33:47.340]a successful manure export program was created
[00:33:50.570]that moved over 85% of the litter produced
[00:33:53.390]in one of the watersheds to non-litigated areas,
[00:33:57.310]but this was a massive undertaking.
[00:33:59.600]A variety of innovations were required
[00:34:02.240]to improve the quality of the manure,
[00:34:05.300]so that's like sanitation and nutrient density,
[00:34:08.270]the quality of that manure for transport,
[00:34:10.900]and to ensure that litter could be stored on site
[00:34:13.800]and readily used by crop farmers.
[00:34:17.920]Initially there were concerns that the litter export mandate
[00:34:21.950]would force poultry operations out of the watershed
[00:34:26.610]due to onerous paperwork requirements
[00:34:29.950]and the cost of exporting litter,
[00:34:31.890]the loss of the fertilizer value of that litter as well.
[00:34:35.270]However, there were $1.3 million from government grants
[00:34:39.730]and matching funds along with contributions from NGOs
[00:34:43.250]that ensured that the poultry operations
[00:34:44.990]could overcome those associated costs.
[00:34:47.890]Also, in the regional network,
[00:34:50.250]I talked to you about the importance of manure brokers.
[00:34:53.310]A brokering program provided coordination
[00:34:56.360]between poultry producers,
[00:34:58.230]trucking companies and cropland farmers,
[00:35:01.220]which removed a majority of the logistical burden,
[00:35:04.370]and so much of the litter was transported to farms
[00:35:07.130]in Eastern Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma
[00:35:09.920]but outside of those litigated watersheds.
[00:35:13.720]However, the export of litter from the watersheds
[00:35:17.250]did result in unintended collateral outcomes,
[00:35:20.280]in particular how calf producers in the litigated watershed
[00:35:25.160]lost a cheap and plentiful source of fertilizer
[00:35:29.830]that they previously used on their pastures.
[00:35:32.840]With the continued export of poultry litter
[00:35:35.700]out of the litigated watershed,
[00:35:38.100]pasture productivity declined,
[00:35:40.080]leading to decreases in beef herd size
[00:35:42.210]and worsening pasture conditions,
[00:35:44.520]and despite these drawbacks,
[00:35:48.271]what it may be,
[00:35:50.020]that the mandated nutrient management changes
[00:35:52.530]did achieve their intended purpose
[00:35:54.180]of lessening phosphorus runoff
[00:35:56.230]within the Illinois River in particular.
[00:36:00.260]One insight gleaned from this manureshed example
[00:36:03.230]is the need for comprehensive engagement
[00:36:05.570]of manureshed actors from the beginning,
[00:36:08.760]connecting with that larger community
[00:36:10.420]to understand concerns and to consider options,
[00:36:13.960]but ultimately that requires strong roles for extension,
[00:36:19.130]outreach, education and also research.
[00:36:26.160]In comparison to both local and regional manure management,
[00:36:30.470]transfer of nutrients from distant ends of the supply chain
[00:36:34.610]may require engagement by the full suite of stakeholders.
[00:36:39.870]You can see here there are no more peripheral connections.
[00:36:45.350]They're all must, should or could,
[00:36:47.630]and while national-scale manureshed management
[00:36:50.380]does not really yet exist,
[00:36:51.920]there are ambitious efforts to concentrate manure
[00:36:55.520]and distribute their nutrient resources across large areas,
[00:36:59.850]including through manure and energy conversion,
[00:37:03.010]if you count that as part of a manureshed, per se,
[00:37:06.440]and composting, but then packaged compost
[00:37:10.500]that travels much further distances.
[00:37:13.990]The fertilizer industry is particularly important
[00:37:17.890]at this scale,
[00:37:20.470]fertilizer industry and the marketing
[00:37:22.750]within that fertilizer industry, I should say,
[00:37:25.430]because processing manure to be a more standardized product,
[00:37:29.600]pelletizing and packaging it is one way
[00:37:32.610]to make transfer of manure long distances more feasible.
[00:37:39.320]Okay, so I'm just gonna quickly click through
[00:37:43.390]what these networks look like by scale.
[00:37:45.750]We're back at the local on-farm scale,
[00:37:49.780]and off-farm, you can see some changes, so swivel back.
[00:37:54.310]Off-farm, now regional.
[00:37:57.000]You see there's, at regional,
[00:37:58.180]there's a lot more of those connections
[00:37:59.900]that need to take place, and at national, even more so.
[00:38:06.030]One more time. (laughing) Okay.
[00:38:09.400]Local on-farm, off-farm, regional and national.
[00:38:14.940]These networks I've showed you,
[00:38:15.960]they have a nesting of core actors,
[00:38:18.590]as you may have noticed just then from on-farm
[00:38:21.960]to that more national or even continental scale,
[00:38:26.800]and social science and how that informs
[00:38:31.190]who and how we engage the core actors at a given scale
[00:38:35.260]is critical to manureshed success,
[00:38:39.800]but that's not to say that we shouldn't exclude
[00:38:42.640]the potential for interactions and opportunities
[00:38:46.160]that stem from relationships with other manureshed actors.
[00:38:50.945]For manureshed management to work,
[00:38:53.170]systems are required that support the conversion
[00:38:57.710]of these relationships that we have hypothesized
[00:39:01.630]into really true partnerships.
[00:39:04.280]This figure is condensing the critical must connections
[00:39:08.960]needed at each spatial scale,
[00:39:11.400]from the on-farm here at the bottom
[00:39:14.560]to the local, regional and then national scales.
[00:39:21.040]In conclusion, there's currently a decoupling
[00:39:25.260]of livestock and crop production
[00:39:28.750]and manure nutrients are largely not making it back
[00:39:31.750]to their place of origin.
[00:39:33.110]There's not that circularity.
[00:39:35.010]Manure nutrients are often distributed
[00:39:36.690]very close to the feedlot.
[00:39:39.410]To increase these travel distances,
[00:39:41.350]we need to invest in technology and improving the,
[00:39:46.170]standardizing them into a product potentially,
[00:39:49.200]some market-based incentives,
[00:39:50.850]potentially regulatory changes,
[00:39:53.290]and we also need to think about
[00:39:54.950]what actors need to be engaged in this process
[00:39:57.700]and at what scale.
[00:39:59.950]The point of those theoretical networks I showed you
[00:40:03.130]are to get the conversation started and think about
[00:40:06.270]who needs to be engaged and in what capacity
[00:40:09.400]for effective nutrient cycling
[00:40:11.300]and then to compare how this plays out in reality
[00:40:15.560]and what will be needed to fully utilize newer resources
[00:40:20.140]and doing so in a way that's sustainable
[00:40:22.180]and by getting the manure nutrients
[00:40:24.350]to where it's really needed,
[00:40:26.570]because ultimately for manureshed management
[00:40:28.900]to successfully integrate crop and livestock production
[00:40:32.840]and sustainably manage manure nutrient
[00:40:34.810]resources at each scale,
[00:40:36.800]the full complement of actors identified
[00:40:39.540]in those social networks are critical
[00:40:41.760]to generate innovation and ensure collaboration continuity.
[00:40:50.215]With that, I will yield the rest of my time for questions,
[00:40:55.040]and if you don't wanna ask your question here in person,
[00:40:58.160]you can email me at gmeredith@unl.edu.
[00:41:02.090]Thank you very much, Gwendwr,
[00:41:04.410]for that great tour of
[00:41:07.700]the human dimensions of manuresheds.
[00:41:12.110]I noticed at, I love the network-based approach
[00:41:15.527]and the multi-scale approach in those networks.
[00:41:19.380]You might've mentioned it at the end,
[00:41:20.830]but one node that was seemed to be highly connected
[00:41:24.840]at all of the scales was the extension node
[00:41:28.100]and you might have touched on this a little bit already
[00:41:33.140]as to the role of that node
[00:41:37.600]in setting the stage from the beginning.
[00:41:41.580]Could you expand on that at all?
[00:41:44.470]Yeah. Sure.
[00:41:45.740]I will, the very first local on-farm scale,
[00:41:50.460]and this, we thought,
[00:41:53.750]at a local scale, extension has a really big impact
[00:41:57.430]and ideally a close relationship with producers
[00:42:01.590]and that's mediated then sometimes by the advisors
[00:42:05.590]and consultants that producers seek outside of extension,
[00:42:08.980]but we are seeing this kind of triangle of relationships
[00:42:13.390]as really impacting manureshed management
[00:42:16.950]at that local scale,
[00:42:18.700]but that relationship continues going forward
[00:42:23.920]but just the recommendations change
[00:42:27.460]so that the nature of that relationship alters,
[00:42:31.830]potentially, at larger geographic scales,
[00:42:35.360]but there's still that role for extension to play.
[00:42:40.490]This is at the local off-farm, the extension here on the,
[00:42:46.650]and then here, the national scale.
[00:42:51.600]Did that answer your question, Dan?
[00:42:53.360]Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
[00:42:56.170]Then I actually had another question about the networks
[00:43:00.280]and another highly connected node there
[00:43:04.270]and that was the regulatory or action agency node,
[00:43:09.180]and it seemed that you gave a couple examples,
[00:43:13.960]the first one being the US feedlot managers,
[00:43:18.030]where that was viewed as kind of
[00:43:22.975]a inhibition
[00:43:26.058]to the distribution of manure,
[00:43:30.920]but then in the Danish example,
[00:43:33.010]that was almost what induced the formation of the network.
[00:43:38.560]Can you talk about that any more
[00:43:40.440]and I guess those differential effects
[00:43:42.630]perhaps that that node could play?
[00:43:45.600]Sure. Absolutely.
[00:43:47.360]That's a good question.
[00:43:51.120]Yeah, and we defined this,
[00:43:53.520]regulatory and action agencies as those that develop
[00:43:56.620]and enforce governmental policy.
[00:44:01.991]Some agencies are,
[00:44:07.200]we don't consider those to be like action, like the EPA,
[00:44:11.010]like there could be negative repercussions
[00:44:13.730]and fines to the producer.
[00:44:16.070]That's a slightly different,
[00:44:18.250]so that's different than agency contexts of USDA.
[00:44:23.220]I'm trying to think about how to best phrase this,
[00:44:26.140]but I think there are, they're both positive,
[00:44:31.200]from the perception of producers,
[00:44:33.020]both positive and negative effects
[00:44:35.140]that those regulatory and action agencies
[00:44:37.710]can have on manure management.
[00:44:41.060]I think from the standpoint of some producers,
[00:44:45.660]like you mentioned the feedlot operator that I spoke to
[00:44:49.630]that thought that manure management
[00:44:51.760]was too heavily regulated and it wasn't as heavily regulated
[00:44:56.060]as commercial fertilizer application.
[00:44:58.770]That was disincentivizing people's use of it,
[00:45:02.420]but there's also this role, like you mentioned,
[00:45:04.710]for regulatory agencies to play
[00:45:08.630]in shaping
[00:45:13.760]policy potentially and getting things changed
[00:45:18.800]so that there is a
[00:45:23.640]incentive to collaborate
[00:45:26.190]and an actual incentive, not a disincentive,
[00:45:29.538]for producers to connect with people
[00:45:32.360]that are slightly further down that chain
[00:45:34.230]and they're being compensated for doing so.
[00:45:39.170]Yeah. Thank you.
[00:45:41.900]Okay, and so then a third or second follow-up then
[00:45:46.320]is you presented on these idealized or
[00:45:51.830]expert-opinion-driven networks.
[00:45:56.250]How close are we to real-world networks and analyzing those?
[00:46:01.480]Is there any work going into that?
[00:46:05.170]Yeah. That's a great question. (laughing)
[00:46:08.280]That's the next step.
[00:46:11.000]That's something that we want to get started,
[00:46:14.500]and we have currently grants out that will,
[00:46:18.070]could hopefully fund some of that work.
[00:46:20.470]I'm not aware of studies that are particularly measuring
[00:46:26.150]the real-world manureshed networks,
[00:46:30.700]especially not at the really large scales,
[00:46:35.470]and so we did try to do this, actually,
[00:46:39.060]and when I talked about
[00:46:45.487]the manuresheds paper that was published
[00:46:47.370]in "Agricultural Systems" in 2020,
[00:46:50.180]this Puget Sound dairy and poultry manureshed,
[00:46:53.800]we did actually try to get boots on the ground,
[00:46:57.510]and it was during COVID, so virtual boots on the ground,
[00:47:02.230]and interview people here,
[00:47:05.590]and maybe it was COVID, there's also legislation happening
[00:47:09.550]in the State of Washington that was making it harder
[00:47:11.750]for the dairy producers, and so we had,
[00:47:17.480]the Washington Dairy Federation was on our side and,
[00:47:21.000]I say on our side, they promoted the survey,
[00:47:23.400]and we still, we didn't get really any participation.
[00:47:30.472]It's something that we want to try,
[00:47:32.750]but we need to really work on developing
[00:47:35.740]as many connections with producers as we can first
[00:47:40.220]to increase participation.
[00:47:42.860]Thank you.
[00:47:44.830]We did have a question in the chat from Tanya.
[00:47:49.320]Hi, Tanya.
[00:47:50.570]And that's related to the role of the network
[00:47:54.940]in distributing responsibility
[00:47:58.750]and cost of the movement of manure,
[00:48:02.120]whereas now it's more the responsibility
[00:48:05.260]of the feedlot itself.
[00:48:06.430]Is that the idea of the network,
[00:48:08.280]is to distribute that amongst multiple actors?
[00:48:13.730]Yeah.
[00:48:14.660]That's a really good way of thinking about it, Tanya.
[00:48:17.070]Thank you.
[00:48:18.800]I think, to a degree, yes.
[00:48:24.800]For local manureshed management,
[00:48:29.100]most of the beef feedlot operators we spoke to said
[00:48:33.180]that they didn't really have much of a barrier
[00:48:36.070]to getting rid of manure nutrients.
[00:48:38.960]Only one mentioned that there's fewer,
[00:48:42.130]there's less and less cropland around them,
[00:48:44.170]and so that manure was having to travel further distances,
[00:48:48.350]but when you think about, really,
[00:48:50.220]this regional manureshed concept,
[00:48:53.240]like the ones I have displayed on the slides right now,
[00:48:56.830]that's not really happening.
[00:48:58.220]That manure would be traveling very far
[00:49:00.850]to actually be traveling
[00:49:03.570]from these particular sources in brown
[00:49:07.200]to the sinks in the aqua,
[00:49:11.840]and so, yeah, I would say
[00:49:17.059]at the regional and certainly in the national scales
[00:49:21.020]that are, the national scales pretty much
[00:49:23.150]just totally aspirational at this point,
[00:49:28.120]that network is there to build a framework
[00:49:30.720]that would make it possible for producers,
[00:49:33.610]because right now there's no incentive
[00:49:37.870]and there's nothing in place for producers
[00:49:41.037]to transfer manure nutrients
[00:49:45.770]across three counties or something.
[00:49:47.390]That's just not really happening,
[00:49:50.690]and if there was impetus from consumers,
[00:49:55.470]maybe it was nutrient-friendly products thing,
[00:49:59.230]like manure, putting anything with manure
[00:50:02.010]on a product of milk, per se,
[00:50:04.400]is maybe not gonna go down so well, but nutrient-friendly,
[00:50:08.330]nutrient-recycled products or something could be one way
[00:50:11.760]to provide some incentive for producers to do so.
[00:50:17.728]Did that answer your question, Tanya? Great.
[00:50:19.587]"Yes," she said.
[00:50:21.430]Thanks. Yes. (laughing)
[00:50:23.120]Yeah, and anyone else feel free
[00:50:24.680]to pose some additional questions
[00:50:27.360]while you still have a chance to do that.
[00:50:29.230]I have another one that came to my own mind here.
[00:50:34.800]It strikes me that often we're talking about
[00:50:37.840]the centralization of supplies in certain cases of things,
[00:50:42.370]something like bioenergy or other things
[00:50:45.100]where you're trying to centralize the supply.
[00:50:47.070]This is actually, the fundamental challenge
[00:50:50.240]is the reverse of that, to distribute it.
[00:50:54.310]Has there been any work comparing,
[00:50:58.410]looking at the different direction of flows there
[00:51:01.343]between different commodities?
[00:51:04.820]The flow, like where manure
[00:51:07.590]is potentially being distributed,
[00:51:10.400]like what commodities it's being distributed on or just-
[00:51:12.630]Yeah, just strategies from other industries
[00:51:15.970]and other commodities.
[00:51:17.710]Often you're trying to centralize something.
[00:51:19.620]In this case, you're trying to decentralize it.
[00:51:24.060]Yes, yes.
[00:51:25.110]No, that's a really good, that's a good point.
[00:51:27.890]We should talk more about that
[00:51:31.280]because, yeah, it's,
[00:51:35.909]in a way, I guess you're trying to not centralize
[00:51:40.590]but recouple because it's a decoupling
[00:51:43.830]and you're trying to recouple that,
[00:51:46.160]but yeah, as far as act, the nutrients themselves,
[00:51:49.160]you're trying to distribute those more widely.
[00:51:53.440]I think there are some cool questions there about,
[00:51:57.980]yeah, centrality versus distribution
[00:52:00.230]and taking examples from other,
[00:52:03.090]or maybe the inverse of examples of other commodities.
[00:52:06.020]Yeah.
[00:52:08.590]Yeah. Thank you.
[00:52:10.330]Okay, we are nearing the end of our time here,
[00:52:15.000]so I want to, on behalf of everyone,
[00:52:18.770]thank you again for presenting this research,
[00:52:21.470]and I do encourage you, as Gwendwr mentioned her email,
[00:52:25.610]if you'd like to reach out to her on,
[00:52:29.080]with additional questions or collaborations,
[00:52:31.420]et cetera, please do so,
[00:52:33.540]and with that, we will conclude the seminar until next week.
[00:52:38.330]Thanks, everyone.
[00:52:39.690]Thank you.

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The Human Dimensions of Manureshed Management

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