Study on behalf of ADEME - 03/12/2010

Context and objective

Gaseous losses from livestock are becoming fundamental in medias. The paradox of this tendency is the large number of publications, scientific or not, while most of the livestock emissions has never been characterized. The development of tools which allow to measure ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions is so topical.

To quantify emissions would also be an advantage to recognize or even to pay livestocks production system according to their environmental performance. Farmers would thus be encouraged to adapt their practices. They could suggest realistics reduction targets without waiting that negative effects becomes so important that expensive regulations could not be overlooked. In this context, ADEME funded an international project which gather animal development industries and research organisations.

The project target was to suggest a set of reference procedures for the measurement of ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions in livestocks and manure storage, adapted to the worlds farms diversity.