Manure treatment technologies: On-farm versus centralized strategies. NE Spain as case study

Manure treatment has become an issue of concern in many farms in order to adequate their productions to the requirements of available arable lands. Such processing should be considered in the framework of a nutrient management planning (NMP) designed under local conditionals and considering cultivable soils as the end-users. In this context, decision on individual or collective scale should not be regarded as a main objective per se since such election should result from the NMP study and design. This paper is aimed to review existing experiences on manure treatment in NE Spain (Catalonia), either at farm or large scale. Some common factors identified in the successful experiences described are the involvement of farmers, technology suppliers and related authorities; energy and fertilizers prices; and the existence of a NMP as a global framework for actuations. Economical factors affecting decision about management and treatment scale are influenced by the density and the intensity of farming in a given area, which favour centralized NMPs and allow optimizing logistics. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.