The Rural Voice, 2002-02, Page 421
Research Scrap Book
Sewage treatment for farms not solution
A favourite complaint from those
opposed to new livestock barns is that
livestock produce much more waste
products than humans yet this waste
isn't treated like human waste. But
Prof. Ron Fleming of Ridgetown
College says these figures overlook
one factor — the huge amount of
water used in treating human wastes.
Fleming says when the water used
in urban waste treatment plants is
taken into account, humans actually
produce 40 times more waste than
pigs do, after allowing for the extra
dilution that is used human waste
treatment. He says 2,000 feeder pigs
produce the equivalent organic waste
of 7,000 people but human sewage
treatment uses so much water that the
waste from just 50 people takes up the
same volume as waste from 2,000
pigs.
"We're doing this study to educate
people and help people put waste
production in perspective," he says.
The initiative answers a growing
demand for farms to employ sewage
treatment practices similar to those
used for managing human waste.
Fleming says that some people
attribute more environmental risks to
current farm practices and believe
human sewage treatment methods to
be superior. But the gains and losses
of the existing processes should be
weighed first, he says.
Typically farm manure systems are
very different from town sewage
systems, he says. For example, biolo-
gical oxygen demand (BODS) is used
to compare the difference between
waste production methods. BODS is a
five-day digestion test that indicates
the organic strength of waste water in
terms of how much oxygen is required
by micro-organisms in the waste water
to stabilize the organic matter in five
days.
Liquid pig manure had a BODS of
28,000 parts per million. Raw sewage
entering a waste water treatment plant
has a BODsof just 170 parts per
million because it is so heavily diluted
by water. That makes animal waste
165 times greater. A human actually
produces the same volume of diluted
waste as about 40 pigs. Before
dilution that ratio is more like one pig
to four humans.
Farm waste management systems
introduce nutrients such as nitrogen
and phosphorus back into cropland by
spreading manure as fertilizer. The
manure and animal waste have a high
organic load, which is recycled
through this process. But with human
waste management, organic loading is
very low because sewage is heavily
diluted with water. In the treatment
process, bacteria are killed off during
the chlorination process.
Although some people have
suggested sewage treatment should be
considered for farms, Fleming says
they may not appreciate the environ-
mental costs, particularly the amount
of water that would be required.
Farmers have a great deal of
interest in manure treatment systems.
he says, but the most appropriate
sysivms may be considerably different
from those used for human waste.0
— Source: University of Guelph
Research Magazine
Suicide rate lower among farmers
Despite several bouts of hard times, farmers were less likely to commit
suicide between 1971 and 1987 than the overall Canadian population, a Queen's
University professor said.
Reporting to the Canadian Farm Safety and Rural Health conference, Dr.
William Picket said he had followed 325,000 men who had identified themselves
in the 1971 census as farmers. Over the next 17 years there were 1,457 suicides
among the group. Nine provinces had lower suicide rates among farmers than the
general population (Quebec didn't.). Common trigger factors include personal
conflict or family break-up, alcohol impairment, loneliness, financial crisis,
financial crisis, acute or chronic illness and access to a means to kill oneself.
Another speaker, however, estimated that only half the farm suicides are
reported with some appearing to be farm accidents.°
— Source: The Western Producer
38 THE RURAL VOICE
Pasture stockpiling
benefits beef farmers
Cattle and sheep can graze
through six inches of snow to get
to lush pasture beneath, a study by
Professors Jock Buchanan -Smith
of the University of Guelph's
Animal and Poultry Science
department and Ann Clark of Plant
Agriculture have discovered.
Their finding comes from a
research study into permanent
grass -pasture stockpiling. By
providing Tush pasture after the
first frost, this feeding system
allows cattle and sheep to stay
outside well into December.
Keeping cattle out of the barn
longer means less need for hay and
straw and lower costs for
equipment, fuel and labour.
"We have some extraordinary
results from cattle being able to eat
through a small amount of snow,"
Buchanan -Smith said. "It's
cheaper for cattle to harvest the
feed for themselves than it is for us
to go out and mechanically harvest
it and cut it as hay or silage."
The challenge for farmers is
finding enough pasture land from
August to October. The grazing
season is extended by allowing
fields to grow after a first cut of
hay is harvested. To get enough
growth cattle must be kept out of
the field from the end of July until
October 15. After that period a
moveable electric fence allows
cattle to strip graze the pasture
until the snow gets too deep.
Besides cost savings for cow -
calf producers by extended graz-
ing, another advantage is healthier
cows, Buchanan -Smith said.
Clark says the choice of forage
seed mixture is important because
nutrients decline in the fall at
variable rates. Experiments with
tall fescue showed it grew longer
into the fall, stayed green longer
and didn't seem to be affected by
killing frost. In weekly tests the
researchers found the fall crop 80-
90 per cent as valuable as a
summer crop in nutritional terms.°
— Source: University of Guelph
Research Magazine