Opportunities for Manure Management Technologies on New York State Dairy Farms

Abstract. New York State has nearly 3,600 dairy farms that produce over 15 billion pounds of milk annually, making New York the nation‘s fourth largest dairy state. The dairy industry is the state‘s largest agricultural sector, contributing significantly to the state‘s economy by generating nearly half of the state‘s total agricultural receipts and providing some of the highest economic multipliers in the state. Livestock farming, however, presents concerns related to potential air, soil and water pollution, and optimal manure management is a key factor for improving the environmental sustainability of the sector. The present paper analyses the opportunities offered by manure management technologies to minimize the impacts of the main phases of farming from the removal from housings to the storage and land application. Technologies for the treatment of manure are also considered, from conservative systems that allow concentration of nutrients to reductive technologies that reduce nitrogen load. Anaerobic digestion (AD) could be a relevant option to improve the sustainability of the dairy sector, considering the significant potential in terms of available feedstocks and biogas production. The American Biogas Council estimated a potential of 52.3 billion cubic feet of renewable methane for NY State, and dairy manure and whey could potentially be the drivers of this production. The paper presents different scenarios of farm scale and centralized anaerobic digestion systems with the most promising treatment options for the management of digestate for larger scale operations.