Will animal manure become brown gold again?

"Culture starts with the manure, because with manure agriculture becomes possible and agriculture offers certainty again and certainty creates greater accessibility". I got this quote from Albert Schweitzer from the interesting book Manure and Vulture from 1967. Wise words from Schweitzer, which were undoubtedly inspired by his stay as a doctor in Africa about a hundred years ago.

In our country, too, 100 years ago, manure was indispensable for some harvest security. Sufficient manure was the best crop insurance. At the time, my grandparents farmed on sandy soil in the Achterhoek. The lease contract from 1923 included the standard provision that: "no manure may be sold, given away or removed from the construction site". Upon termination of the lease, the stock of hay and straw could be taken away. The remaining stock of manure had to remain on the construction site.  

The awareness of manure as an indispensable product for good agricultural production has faded for years. Manure surpluses and the negative consequences of manure for the environment and nature have dominated politics and public opinion for half a century to this day. Will 2022 be the year of a change in thinking about manure? Fertilizer prices have exploded. Nitrogen as a fertilizer has already become three times more expensive. Phosphate and potassium twice as expensive. And that in just two years and the end is not yet in sight. The world food issue for 10 billion people has suddenly become a major issue again.

Arable farmers are paying for manure again
The value of minerals in cattle and pig slurry has tripled. These types of manure now represent an NPK value of almost €20 and €28 per tonne respectively. The demand for manure is increasing. This spring, the first arable farmers paid for manure again in years. This has initiated an important turning point in the fertilizer market. Although the value of manure has never disappeared, the financial valuation as natural fertilizer has. If this change continues, where will demand-driven fertilizer sales end? One swallow does not make a summer, but still, will we soon see that manure is collected for free from livestock farmers? And lock full manure storages against theft of manure? If fertilizer prices become unaffordable, this may just happen. Not in the short term, but it may be moving in that direction sooner than expected.

It is actually a pleasant thought that in the Netherlands we then have a large amount of animal manure for fertilizing our fields and meadows. We make exportable fertilizer products from the manure that is left over. That is good for our national balance of payments. I am not advocating standing still and doing nothing. A more sustainably producing livestock farming in combination with a better revenue model remains necessary, but at an adjusted pace. Politics: Stay away from the size of the livestock. The market regulates this itself. The changes in the fertilizer market as a result of the global situation may well become the reset button for the new fertilizer or nitrogen policy. A new and at least adapted vision is necessary. In this view, manure is finally the 'brown gold' that livestock farmers have been waiting for so long.

Jaap Uenk

Jaap Uenk is the owner of consultancy Mestem and has more than 40 years of experience in various positions in the Dutch fertilizer sector.

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