Fertilizer and excess nutrients in water make it possible to point fingers at farmers, processors and agriculturalists. Northwest Arkansas's US Congressman, John Boozman, at a Public Hearing on Water Quality March 19 at College of the Ozarks, noted, "All interest groups must continue to work together and use the information out there to promote water quality."
Fearing farmers would be unnecessarily blamed for most water quality violations, David Casaletto, Executive Director with the Table Rock Lake Water Quality Inc. said, “Normally agriculture is not the main culprit. Farmers test the soil and apply just what needs to be there, because if their fertilizers run off, they’ve wasted money.”
Still though, much blame in the Ozarks for water quality violations will fall back on the poultry producers. Several innovative ideas to reduce water pollution were presented for poultry producers, specifically in heating and litter utilization.
Alum in poultry litter
Dr. Phillip Moore, a soil scientist with the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service Poultry Production and Product Safety Research unit, discussed the opportunities he has found when poultry litter is treated with Alum (Aluminum Sulfate). Alum binds to phosphorus in an unavailable form, it lowers ammonia volatilization, increases crop yields and decreases ammonia gases, which is better for the birds and the growers, Moore cited. “With alum, growers don’t have to ventilate the houses as much, which offers a 10 to 12 percent energy savings,” he said.
Poultry litter treated with alum will have a decreased phosphorus runoff by 75 percent.
Farmer to Farmer Commerce
Bill Harvill, a poultry producer near Neosho, Mo., said in response to poultry producers being targeted for water quality violations, he encourages farmers to look for new ways to stay viable when old ways become too expensive. “We need to look at a way to heat a poultry barn besides propane heating. There are 17,000 poultry houses in Arkansas. We must find ways to begin utilizing renewable energy. I have developed a relationship with a crop farmer in Barton County, Missouri, and I shipped 1,000 tons of litter into Barton County in trade for 8,000 bushels of corn. As oil goes up so does commercial fertilizer. Poultry litter is great fertilizer. It needs to be put on corn. Since corn was $6 a bushel, I sold the corn and bought wood pellets to burn to heat my poultry houses,” Harvill explained.
With high priced corn and high priced fuel, Harvill called for the representatives at the hearing to explore Carbon credits given to farmers who work with other farmers to trade litter for crops and vice versa.
Harvill said that he believed the government needed to start putting incentives out there to encourage a future in heating with biomass.
Boozman concluded, "I think we will continue to see farmers trying to swap their products, trying to build that inter-state commerce, and hopefully in the future, on both the state and federal level, the government can foster those kinds of relationships."
