Survey on manure management in Southern Piedmont region of Italy, new rules and following potential future strategies

The Council Directive 91/676/CEE concerning the protection of water against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources has generated in Italy a new national and regional legislation relevant for the manure management in agriculture. In accordance to the Directive, and following national and regional laws and decree, "vulnerable zones" have been identified on the Piedmont regional territory. In these zones it is not possible to spread on fields more nitrogen than that required by the crop on the basis of a nutrient balance, and 170 kg/ha is the maximum quantity of nitrogen that is possible to supply to the crop. Minimum limits are set for manure storage as well as other restrictions related to nitrogen distribution. These new rules have a great impact on animal production farms. For this reason in 2003 the regional administration of Piedmont has started on an environmental monitoring action on livestock farms to evaluate the effect on the farm management of the new rules. Earlier data on environmental monitoring on 68 pigs farms in vulnerable zone in Cuneo province, in southern part of Piedmont region, are at the moment available. These farms have roughly 6,800 tons of liveweight of pigs, 3,450 ha of land for the landspreading and 8,900 m3 as manure storage volume. Near all farms do not have enough land for the application of farm manure respecting the limit of 170 kg/ha of nitrogen allowed for land distribution to crop. Only 13 farms satisfy the new minimum manure storage capacity established by the new rules. The survey on a larger number of animal production farms is going on. In spring 2004 greater number of data will be available and the paper will discuss the different options on manure management strategies, application and treatments, livestock farms in vulnerable zones have to adopt to comply with new environmental rules. Economic aspects are examined.