Farmscape for December 29, 2017

The Executive Director of the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative says issues related to manure odor and the value of manure have resurfaced as priorities when it comes to research related to the management of livestock manure.
In March, after almost two decades in operation, the Manitoba Livestock Management Initiative will disband and its activities will be rolled into a more broadly mandated provincial research organization created under the new federal provincial Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
MLMMI Executive Director John Carney says, over the past 20 years, while the focus has remained the same, the priorities have evolved.

Clip-John Carney-Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative:
The focus in the beginning and right through to today has been simply manure management in Manitoba.
Our focus has been consistent.
From time to time priorities change.
For instance in our early days a lot of our research went into odor mitigation and management and then, for a period of time, we really focused on nutrient management and phosphorus imbalances where there's greater nutrients produced by livestock than spread acres.
PED came into focus and we've done some work on survivability of the virus in PED.
Now that conditions are right for the industry to look at some growth again, the focus is now shifting back to questions like odor management and also the value of nutrients in crop production and the economic value of manure.

Carney notes, effective April 1, the work of the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative will be amalgamated into a new research program under a single research delivery model.
He says, under the new program the work the MLMMI has been doing will continue but will be broadened to cover all forms of agriculture related research.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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