Recycling animal excreta as manure can enrich farmland soil, replace chemical fertilizers and improve water quality in rivers, the Environmental Protection Administration said on Tuesday as it announced plans to promote the program to at least 650 husbandry farms this year.
Many rivers have been polluted by waste water containing ammonium nitrogen, mainly discharged by husbandry farms, which leads to massive spending to improve the quality of water, Department of Water Quality Protection Director-General Wu Sheng-chung (吳盛忠) told a news conference in Taipei.
Instead of being a source of river pollution, properly processed animal excreta can replace chemical fertilizers, making both crops and soil healthier, Wu said.
Photo: Yang Chin-chieh, Taipei Times
Husbandry farm owners would not have to pay water pollution fees when excreta collected at their farms can be converted into fertilizers and even biomass fuel, he added.
Since the agency started promoting recycling excreta as fertilizer in 2016, the number of farms joining the program had grown to 558 last month, up from 491 in December last year and 211 in December 2017, agency data showed.
The agency plans to increase the number of participating farms to 650 by the end of this year, Wu said.
The agency would increase collaboration with the Council of Agriculture and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to promote the benefits of the program to the nation’s 7,000 pig farms, while encouraging bigger farms to help the smaller ones, Wu added.
In Tainan, and Yunlin, Pingtung and Changhua counties, which have the most pig farms, the water quality of local rivers used to be poor due to polluted water discharged from the farms, Department of Water Quality section head Lin Hung-ta (林宏達) said.
The average river pollution index of the section of Donggang River (東港溪) near Longdong Bridge (隴東橋) in Pingtung County has improved from 4.4 in 2016 to 2.4 last month — from moderate to light level of pollution — after 13 pig farms in the vicinity joined the program, he said.
Crop and animal farmers interested in the program can sign up via the agency’s Web site, Lin added.
Invited to share his experiences, Yunlin County-based farmer Sam Wang (王銘儀) said that recycling swine excreta helped to cut his electricity and labor costs involved in its disposal.
Despite initial doubts, rice farmers working with him said their crops have grown larger and healthier after being nourished with manure, he said.
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