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Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms

Among one of the key challenges in dairy production is the management of manure in a way that is beneficial for agricultural production, with minimal environmental and public health impacts. Manure management systems (MMS)—the entire system of handling, storage, and application of manure—are diverse...

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Autores principales: Niles, Meredith T., Wiltshire, Serge, Lombard, Jason, Branan, Matthew, Vuolo, Matthew, Chintala, Rajesh, Tricarico, Juan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9165779/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35657780
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267731
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author Niles, Meredith T.
Wiltshire, Serge
Lombard, Jason
Branan, Matthew
Vuolo, Matthew
Chintala, Rajesh
Tricarico, Juan
author_facet Niles, Meredith T.
Wiltshire, Serge
Lombard, Jason
Branan, Matthew
Vuolo, Matthew
Chintala, Rajesh
Tricarico, Juan
author_sort Niles, Meredith T.
collection PubMed
description Among one of the key challenges in dairy production is the management of manure in a way that is beneficial for agricultural production, with minimal environmental and public health impacts. Manure management systems (MMS)—the entire system of handling, storage, and application of manure—are diverse in countries with developed dairy industries such as the United States, enabled by a number of different technologies. The ways in which dairy farmers manage manure is driven by varying tradeoffs, including economic, social, and environmental; however, existing research has not examined the relationships between components of MMS. Here we use data from the National Animal Health Monitoring System’s Dairy 2014 study to explore the ways in which manure handling, storage, and application are related, using a series of logistic regression models and network associations. We found significant associations between how manure is handled, stored, and applied, especially driven by the consistency of manure. For solid manure, we found highly heterogeneous systems, where farmers may have a suite of alternative manure management strategies available to them, and substitution is viable. Conversely, farms using liquid manure systems have very few substitutes in their MMS, suggesting greater investment in certain infrastructures, which are not easily changed. Such findings have important implications for shifting farmers towards management practices with minimal environmental and public health impacts, demonstrating that not all farm systems are easily changed. We highlight these results in light of current policies, which may not fully capture the relationships across the MMS, and suggest that greater financing may be necessary to shift MMS on some farms. Furthermore, we suggest that different MMS have varying tradeoffs across environmental, social, and economic aspects, which demonstrates that MMS are highly individualized to a given farm’s goals and priorities.
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spelling pubmed-91657792022-06-05 Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms Niles, Meredith T. Wiltshire, Serge Lombard, Jason Branan, Matthew Vuolo, Matthew Chintala, Rajesh Tricarico, Juan PLoS One Research Article Among one of the key challenges in dairy production is the management of manure in a way that is beneficial for agricultural production, with minimal environmental and public health impacts. Manure management systems (MMS)—the entire system of handling, storage, and application of manure—are diverse in countries with developed dairy industries such as the United States, enabled by a number of different technologies. The ways in which dairy farmers manage manure is driven by varying tradeoffs, including economic, social, and environmental; however, existing research has not examined the relationships between components of MMS. Here we use data from the National Animal Health Monitoring System’s Dairy 2014 study to explore the ways in which manure handling, storage, and application are related, using a series of logistic regression models and network associations. We found significant associations between how manure is handled, stored, and applied, especially driven by the consistency of manure. For solid manure, we found highly heterogeneous systems, where farmers may have a suite of alternative manure management strategies available to them, and substitution is viable. Conversely, farms using liquid manure systems have very few substitutes in their MMS, suggesting greater investment in certain infrastructures, which are not easily changed. Such findings have important implications for shifting farmers towards management practices with minimal environmental and public health impacts, demonstrating that not all farm systems are easily changed. We highlight these results in light of current policies, which may not fully capture the relationships across the MMS, and suggest that greater financing may be necessary to shift MMS on some farms. Furthermore, we suggest that different MMS have varying tradeoffs across environmental, social, and economic aspects, which demonstrates that MMS are highly individualized to a given farm’s goals and priorities. Public Library of Science 2022-06-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9165779/ /pubmed/35657780 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267731 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Niles, Meredith T.
Wiltshire, Serge
Lombard, Jason
Branan, Matthew
Vuolo, Matthew
Chintala, Rajesh
Tricarico, Juan
Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms
title Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms
title_full Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms
title_fullStr Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms
title_full_unstemmed Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms
title_short Manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across U.S. dairy farms
title_sort manure management strategies are interconnected with complexity across u.s. dairy farms
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9165779/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35657780
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267731
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