Sustainable and Safe Recycling of Livestock Waste
Project Status: Ongoing
Type of Project: Research Project
Principal Investigator: Dr Dave Chadwick, IGER (Email)
Website
Objectives
Today, farming systems need to be both multifunctional and sustainable: the lack of integrated analysis of food chains means this is not easy. Sustainability ‘audits’ need to cover both ‘upstreaming’: the farm to fork and ‘downstreaming’: the farm to field aspects. Audits of this type are not possible without an integrated and holistic approach that brings together both social and economic drivers and the environmental consequences of farmer and policy decisions. In particular, more rigorous research linking microbiological research to public perceptions of risk; actual levels of risk, and public perceptions of ‘traceability’ in the food chain is needed. In this project we bring together expertise to determine current perceptions of farmers, retailers, consumers and local ‘downstream’ industries (tourism and shell fisheries) to the issue of pathogen transfers to the food chain and assess the impacts of changes in management practices at the farm level (to reduce the risk of pathogen transfers) on farm costs and costs to other stakeholder groups and the region as a whole. We will also develop a risk assessment tool to quantify the efficiency and costs of adopting management practices to reduce pathogen transfers. Additional process based research will improve our understanding of the factors controlling pathogen survival in soils and manure stores as well as mechanisms of pathogen transport. This information will be used to improve management of manures/wastes on farms to reduce the risk of transfers to the food chain.
PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles
Murray, R. and Hodgson, C.J. (2007) “Getting down and dirty with microbes on the farm”. Microbiologist 8 (4) 49-50.
Oliver, D.M., Heathwaite, A.L., Hodgson, C.J. and Chadwick, D.R. (2007) “Mitigation and current management attempts to limit pathogen survival and movement within farmed grassland”. Advances in Agronomy 93, 95-152.
Conference Papers and Presentations
Heathwaite, A.L. (2005) “Catchment sensitive science into policy”
Presentation to UNESCO Workshop on surface - groundwater interactions
in river corridors, Session IV Knowledge transfer into catchment management
practices Oxford, UK, 12-14th September.
Heathwaite, A.L. (2005) “Connectivity: linking land to water:
processes, pathways and risk assessment for water quality” Presentation
to Joint FAO/IAEA Division Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture.
International meeting on Water and Land Resources Management within
the Plant Rooting Zone for Food and Security and Environmental Sustainability,
Vienna 18-20th May 05.
Heathwaite, A.L. and Harris, R. (2005) “Integrated catchment science”
Presentation to NERC LOCAR Science meeting, Reading, UK, 20th March.
Invited contribution.
Heathwaite, A.L. (2005) “Water, water everywhere – but usually
too much, too little or too late” Presentation to Sustainable
Development Research Network Annual Meeting, London, 22 September.
Chadwick, D. (2005) "Environment and land use" Presentation
to RELU conference Rural Economy and Land Use: The Challenge for Research
19-21 Jan 2005, Birmingham.
http://www.relu.ac.uk/events/Jan05/Presentations/p5
Chadwick.PDF
Chadwick, D. (2005) "Sustainable and holistic food chains
for recycling livestock waste to land" Presentation to RELU
conference Rural Economy and Land Use: The Challenge for Research 19-21
Jan 2005, Birmingham.
http://www.relu.ac.uk/events/Jan05/Presentations/p4
Chadwick.PDF
Chadwick, D. (2006) “Assessing the risk of farm management practices
on stream FIO loads using an evidence based approach” Poster presented
at Bathing Waters Symposium, Newcastle, Northern Ireland – 22/23
November 2006.
Chadwick, D. (2006) “Interdisciplinary research projects - Sustainable
and holistic food chains for recycling livestock waste to land”
Presentation to the BBSRC Sustainable Agriculture Panel.
Chadwick, D. (2006) “Sustainable and holistic food chains for
recycling livestock waste to land” Poster presented at Rural Economy
and Land Use: Enabling Knowledge Exchange Conference, Manchester 18-20
January.
Chadwick, D. (2006) “Mitigation and current management attempts
to limit pathogen survival and movement within farmed grasslands”
Presentation to Defra – during work shadowing week.
Oliver, D. (2006) “Systematically assessing risk in the farming
landscape” Presentation to Rural Economy and Land Use: Enabling
Knowledge Exchange, University of Manchester, 18-20 January.
Winter, M. (2006) “Sustainable waste management in dairy farming:
implications for the rural economy” Presentation to RELU/AWM Workshop
on Sustainable Food Chains and Rural and Regional Development, Birmingham,
11 May.
Winter, M. (2006) “Research for regional and rural development:
a practitioner’s perspective” Presentation to Rural Economy
and Land Use: Enabling Knowledge Exchange, University of Manchester,
18-20 January.
Bulmer, N., Hodgson, C. J. and Chadwick, D. R. (2007) “The survival of FIOs in soil, following dairy cattle slurry application to land by surface broadcasting and shallow injection” Proceedings 161st meeting of the Society of General Microbiology (SGM), University of Edinburgh, 2-6 September 2007.
Chadwick, D. et al (2007) “Dealing with uncertain data” Rural Economy and Land Use Uncertainty Workshop, Lancaster University. March.
Fish, R. (2007) “The responsibility of the state in controlling livestock diseases” Contribution to the Festival of Social Science and National Science and Engineering Week, London. March.
Fish, R. (2007) “Worlds within worlds: recognising and reconciling intra-disciplinary controversies within inter-disciplinary research”. Presentation to British Association for the Advancement of Science, 2008 Festival of Science, York University, 13 September.
Hodgson, C. J. et al. (2007) “Would changing farmers attitudes to waste management make our food and water safer?”. Presentation to Relu Conference “Unlocking change in the food chain”, London, 7 November.
Hodgson, C. J., Oliver, D. M., Fish, R. D., Heathwaite, A. L., Winter, D. M. and Chadwick, D. R. (2007) “Assessing the impact of farm management practices on stream FIO loads using an evidence based approach” 15th International Environmental Bioindicators Conference, City University of Hong Kong, 7-9 June (also presented at 161st meeting of the Society of General Microbiology (SGM), University of Edinburgh, 3-6 September).
Selfa, T. (2007) "Household and landscape responses to changing environmental mandates: examples from Devon, England" Presentation to XXIInd Congress of the European Society for Rural Sociology, 20-24 August, Wageningen, NL.
Winter, M. (2007) “Farmers should be responsible for controlling livestock diseases.” Relu Debates on Power and Responsibility: Who Decides: You Decide, Royal Academy of Engineering, London. March.