Animal Waste Management Manure from a dairy milking 200 cows produces as much nitrogen as is in the sewage from a community of 5,000-10,000 people. The annual litter from a typical broiler house of 22,000 birds contains as much phosphorus as is in the sewage from a community of 6,000 people. Any increase in animal numbers results in an equal increase in the problems arising from manure collection, storage, treatment, and utilization. Beef production in the United States decreased almost 15 percent between 1982 and 1992, while broiler production increased 59 percent and turkey production increased 62 percent, with a corresponding increase in manure and other residual materials. Manure production and characteristics have changed over time.
Livestock tend to be larger and thus produce more manure.
Individual herds or flocks are generally larger, and production is tending toward geographic concentrations of specific kinds of animals, such as poultry in the Southeast. Confinement is the rule for most livestock and poultry. The Environmental Protection Agency has targeted a reduction in biogas emissions from livestock waste of 1.5 million metric tons of carbon equivalent by the year 2000. Meeting this goal would allow the United States to help meet the target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as agreed to at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.