The Rural Voice, 2019-06, Page 52Manure spreading is a
messy business but the
regulations that dictate
nutrient management
are even more so, suggests an
environmental specialist.
“I have worked for government
for 25 years but I have never been
involved in a regulation as messy as
the Nutrient Management Act,” said
Jacqui Empson-Laporte, an
environmental specialist with the
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and
Food (OMAFRA)
Laporte was speaking at a meeting
of the Huron County Water
Protection Steering Committee in
Holmesville on March 22. In a
packed three hours, speakers
informed attendees about nutrient
management regulations, the best
ways to apply manure (plus very bad
ways), the coolest equipment for
spreading manure and how industrial
composting makes soil “gold” out of
dead animals.
Highly informative, the meeting’s
focus was on nutrient management
and related strategies to protect water
quality.
As an early morning speaker,
Laporte said she was there to wade
through the “spaghetti” that is
nutrient management to help
everyone follow the evolution of the
concept, what is applied to land and
why regulations can hardly keep up.
What is nutrient management? It’s
the process of applying different
materials to the land for the purpose
of growing crops. “That phrase is
really important because it is the
fundamental description of nutrient
management,” said Laporte. Included
in the concept is keeping nutrients on
the land where they belong and
protecting the natural environment
when they are applied. Plus, ensuring
a sustainable future for the
agriculture operations and rural
development.
“We want to make sure livestock
industries thrive but manage nutrients
in an appropriate way,” said Laporte.
It’s a simple statement. So why is
the process so complex? Because it
isn’t just dairy, hog, beef and chicken
farmers involved in spreading their
animal manure on land. Now there
are biosolids from sewage treatment
plants, manure and bedding from
livestock trucks, waste materials
from anaerobic digesters, green bins
from urban centres, milkhouse
wastewater, greenhouse nutrient
feedwater, fruit and vegetable waste
and composted dead animals.
The future could bring even more
opportunities for, if it has a nutrient
value, why not use it to grow crops?
However, the government is still
trying to play catch up on the
standards for current materials that
are being sampled to make sure they
are appropriate for land use
application.
Compost is equally complicated.
“We use the same word to talk about
two different materials and two
different stages of composition,” said
Laporte.Some compost piles are
required to be sampled and turned
and others are acceptable as long as
“there are no big chunks left.”
Regulation 106/09 deals with
“regulated compost” while 105/09
governs “composting material.”
You’d think commercial fertilizers
would be simple but that changed
once industrial products and
biosolids were added to the
definition.
Some farm materials have no
legislation at all. “If I had my choice
the next one I would like to tackle is
silo leachate,” said Laporte. “We
have huge silos with a lot of leachate
48 The Rural Voice
Soil health requires many strategies
With opics ranging from government regulations, to new equipment, to
rules about manure spreading that could come our way courtesy of
Europe, plus practical ideas on how to protect soils, speakers at the Huron
County Water Protection Steering Committee covered a lot of ground when
it comes to strategies for nutrient management in Huron County (and all
Ontario) farms. ~Photo by Bonnie Sitter
Nutrient Management
•By Lisa B. Pot •