ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF MANURE SPREADERS: A METHODOLOGY FOR AMMONIA EMISSIONS EVALUATION

Agriculture is the major source of ammonia (NH3) emission, mainly from livestock manure management. Reducing NH3 emissions from applications of manures to land is particularly important, because these are a large component of total livestock farming emissions. A number of reduced-emission application systems have been developed in the last decade. In order to facilitate the diffusion of such technologies the assessment of their environmental performances is crucial. This paper presents a methodology for the testing of manure spreading devices in terms of emissions of NH3 after application of manure. The test method is based on a case-control study: the spreading device to be tested is compared to a reference system under identical experimental conditions. According to the positive results of a preliminary test, the proposed methodology can be used to provide reliable and comparable information on the environmental performance - related to NH3 emissions - of manure application devices.