Selection of pig manure management strategies: Case study of Polish farms

The goal of the study is to propose a pig manure management system that is useful for the owners of 30,000 ha of arable lands and a group of five Polish pig farms that produce approximately 240,000 m3 y−1 of pig manure. The BATNEEC options method was used to evaluate three selected systems of pig manure management: storage, utilisation for fertilization, and processing by filtration using the AMAK method for fertilizer production. These options were evaluated on the basis of specific formulated criteria. The processing by the AMAK method was rated very highly (89% maximum). However, very low scores were given for fertilization with pig manure and its storage (39% and 22% maximum, respectively). The system proposed for pig manure management was as follows: elimination of manure storage in lagoons, application of roughly half the pig manure as fertilizer, processing of the other half by the AMAK method on each farm, and the use of a separated solid phase to produce mineral-organic fertilizers in one central unit.