U of M to Study Environmental Impact of Various Livestock Systems
Farmscape for April 18, 2002 (Episode 942) The University of Manitoba says its planned Centre for Agroecological Livestock Production Systems will look at the environmental impact of various intensive livestock production systems on a range of soil types. Construction of the 8.8 million dollar centre is tentatively scheduled to begin in the spring of 2003 and it's hoped the facility will be operational in 2004. Animal Science Department Head Dr. Karin Wittenberg says the centre will give researchers the ability to compare several different intensive livestock production systems on a 'whole farm' basis. Clip-Dr. Karin Wittenberg-University of Manitoba We will have a 175 sow barn that will be slurry based and the nursery grow finish facility to accommodate the pigs coming out of the sow unit. We're going to have an identical 175 sow facility on a solid manure system and it will also have a nursery grow finish supporting barn. To accomplish this we will have small grow finish units in which we can set up water, feed handling, manure handling systems and look at how that impacts on a whole barn basis things like productivity, odor, composition of manure, opportunities for water saving measures, opportunities to shift the carbon nutrient loads, the energy nutrient loads coming out of the facility and opportunities to improve the quality of the animal leaving the unit. Dr. Wittenberg says most of the work will be done at the Glenlea research farm where the university has roughly 600 hectares of land. She says the university plans to acquire additional land near its Carman research farm to accommodate research on the lighter soils in the Carman area and discussions are underway with research groups in Western Manitoba aimed at establishing a third site to represent the type of soil in the southwest. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane. *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council