Dairy Manure Collaborative - San Joaquin Valley
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The Agriculture Program leads the San Joaquin Valley Dairy Manure Collaborative, initiated in 2003 to address environmental issues associated with the Valley's dairy industry. The Collaborative's mission is to develop methods of managing manure as a resource for improving soil quality, fertilizing crops, and generating renewable energy while reducing emissions of pollutants to air and water. Participants include:
- Federal and State agencies
- Dairy industry
- Vendors of manure treatment technologies
- University researchers and cooperative extension
- Public interest organizations
The U.S. EPA Region 9 Agriculture Program serves as a clearinghouse for information for Dairy Manure Collaborative participants, with the immediate goal of facilitating the construction of pilot or full-scale systems that demonstrate the feasibility of comprehensive manure management systems for dairies. Prerequisites for such comprehensive systems are:
- Technologies to process all or most of the many constituents of dairy manure
- Locations that offer conditions conducive to processing dairy manure, including adequate quantities within an efficient radius
- Funding, which may be available from various public and private sources
- Policy and regulation that create conditions for beneficial economic as well as environmental outcomes
Exemplary projects will be fully integrated into dairy operations and compatible with the local community, and they will document environmental and economic performance of the system and freely share these results with other participants in the collaborative and with the public.