BALTIC MANURE - Baltic Forum for Innovative Technologies for Sustainable MANure Management

LLU kā partneris piedalās BSR programmas projekta īstenošanā.

The Baltic Sea Basin is an area of intesive, and intensifying agricultural production. There are about 36 million units of cattle, 67 million units of pigs, and 190 million units of poultry in the region. (Gren, I.-M. et al., 2008: Cost of nutrient reductions to the Baltic Sea - technical report). Intensifying and concentration of animal production has resulted in environmental problems caused by manure based nutrient surplus and water eutrofication in some regions. Whilst animal manure is still considered mainly as an environmental problem, agriculture uses substantial amounts of non-renewable nutrients and energy. Indeed, manure must be considered as a resource instead of a problem. It is calculated, that manure contains 981 000 ton of Nitrogen and 281 000 ton of Phosphorus, currently not utilised properly (BalticSea2020 report "best available technologies for manure treatment"). The Baltic Sea Strategy Priority Area 9 Flagship project.

BALTIC MANURE is turning the perception of manure and intensive animal husbandry from an environmental problem into an opportunity for business innovation. The project develops and utilizes the high potential and know-how for innovative solutions for manure management, such as production of renewable energy, organic fertilizers and other added value products. Innovation potential of SME's in the region will be improved by joint efforts of the institutions and countries involved through conferences, fairs and B2B events. Common norms for manure quality are required in order to develop sound and coherent policies and regulations, which may stimulate business development in the field. Close scientific cooperation and technological insight are needed also to address the challenge of more efficient phosphorous recycling. Life Cycle Analysis is used to asses environmental aspects of different manure handling technologies and as a basis for recommendations.

Project Objectives:

• To establish a needed manure knowledge forum by transnational R&D efforts, communication and business innovation;
• To evaluate the existing systems and technologies for animal housing and manure processing in the Baltic Sea Region;
• To evaluate the existing norms for manure in relation to animal housing and technologies to reach sustainable fertilization, with a special emphasis on Phosphorus;
• To perform sustainability analysis of new technologies;
• To identify and analyse the commercial potentials of manure technologies, e.g. for energy purposes;
• To evaluate the incentive structure and national interpretations of EU directives influencing the development of inventive manure processing technologies;
• To stimulate business innovation for manure technologies and recommend specific investments

Project Duration: 17. 09. 2010 - 16. 12. 2013, 42 months
Approximate total project budget in EUR: 3.740.940,00
ERDF co-financing: 2.859.000,00
ENPI co-financing: 0,00 
Norwegian national contribution:0,00