Chicken Run: Preserving Water Quality Just Got a Lot Easier for Farmers

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – University of Arkansas researcher Indrajeet Chaubey has developed a simple, inexpensive index that will help farmers and regulators meet water quality standards when locating animal operations or applying animal manure to fields.

"Animal production and manure application to fields are important to the economies of many states, but they are also the biggest contributors to nonpoint source (NPS) water pollution," Chaubey said.

Chaubey presented his method at the American Society of Agricultural Engineers’ Annual Meting, July 9-12, in Milwaukee.

"Farmers want to do what is best for the environment," said Chaubey. "Water quality affects them, too. It had a direct impact on their lives and livelihood."

Determining what is best has been a problem. Siting of poultry houses, swine operations and other animal production facilities has a direct impact on the surrounding watershed. In addition, land application of animal manure is highest in regions where animal production is common, contributing to the pollution problem.

In 1989 the National Research Council identified agricultural NPS as the most damaging and widespread threat to the environment. These findings have resulted in new state and federal regulations for facility siting and land application of manure and a new set of problems for farmers.

"To develop the Best Management Practices (BMP) many regulations require, farmers and regulators need to know the long-term water quality response to various applications under different soil conditions," explained Chaubey. "But the models to do this are very complex, require large data sets and cannot be easily used by people outside of the research community."

Chaubey’s solution to this problem is the Animal Waste Pollution Potential Index (AWPPI), a simple approach to identify areas with high NPS susceptibility. AWPPI provides a relative ranking to help the farmer decide which fields are suitable for siting production facilities or application of animal manure with a minimum impact on water quality.

AWPPI uses readily available information, such as slope, distance between the manure application area and streams, the number of animal production facilities in the area and the rate of manure application to produce the index. It can be used to screen areas to determine where facilities can be sited or manure applied with minimum impact on the environment.

"Another advantage of this method is that all of the watershed characteristic data can be developed from digital elevation models that are readily available at no cost from the U.S. Geological Survey," said Chaubey. "It can also be used for any type of animal agriculture, not just poultry or swine."

AWPPI has been used successfully for watersheds in Alabama and Virginia. The software can run on any computer that has access to GIS facilities, such as the Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Agricultural Extension Service or the University of Arkansas.

Chaubey’s next step is to develop an Internet-based application that will allow landowners to point-and-click to determine the suitability of a particular area for facility siting or manure application.

"This method could be used to generate a countywide or statewide Internet-based AWPPI using GIS data currently on the Internet," Chaubey explained. "The farmer would only need to point to the location and input the application rate to get the necessary information."