Distribution of Animals Used for Agriculture and Manure Generated: Ratio of Manure to Land Application–Conclusions and Findings

by James Videle

The Humane Party’s Economic Transition Team has completed its report analyzing the manure generated from animals, which can be found on the Publications Page of the Humane Herald.  The purpose of the document is to understand the daily generation of animal manure due to animal agriculture and its implications.  Recommended rates of manure application to farmlands are taken into account along with each state’s total land and farming-allocated land to evaluate whether the amount of manure generated per state is insufficient, sufficient, or excessive to meet the fertilization needs of each state.

Conclusions

After reviewing the data for the entirety of the United States, it is concluded that the number of animals being farmed generates an amount of manure that exceeds the fertilization needs of crop and grazing land by alarming rates.  Every state exceeds the recommended amount of manure that can be safely applied to their farmlands with manure locally generated.

Alaska is the state that least exceeds this amount and yet it generates ten times more in a year than can be safely applied to its crop and grazing lands.  The economic, environmental and health implications of such excessive amounts of manure can be potentially devastating.  Further research is necessary to understand the uses and measures undertaken to handle the excess manure as well as to assess the present and future effects of the excess manure on local communities and at a national level.

Even though this report centers around the manure generated by animals being farmed, manure is only a symptom of the real problem.  The underlying problem is the number of animals being farmed for human consumption, which is generating a waste that cannot be effectively used or safely disposed.

Key Findings

In the entire continental U.S., over 9 billion animals are kept for farming purposes within a year. Chickens (both broiler chickens and laying hens) make up the vast majority of animals exploited at 8.567 billion individuals.

States with the largest concentrations of chickens are Georgia (1,339,600,000), Alabama (1,082,900,00), and Arkansas (962,000,000).  These three states keep 41.65% of all chickens used for their meat in the U.S. Territory.

Incredibly, the amount of manure generated in the entire U.S. is 8.74 billion pounds per day, a grand total of 3.19 trillion pounds per year.

By analyzing the amount of manure generated per state and putting it into context with the land mass of each state and their allocated Fertilizer Applicable Farming Land (F.A.F.L.), we obtain the times we can cover each state’s total land mass and F.A.F.L. shown in Exhibits 5 & 5.2 of our report.  Some of the most relevant findings include the following:

• The top five states generating manure are Texas (805,447,000 lbs/day), Iowa (535,811,000 lbs/day), Georgia (459,908,000 lbs/day), North Carolina (417,426,000 lbs/day), and California (398,750,000 lbs/day). The top three states generate in aggregate 20.60% of the entire manure generated in the U.S. territory, and the top five states generate 29.93% of all the manure generated in the U.S. territory.
• The entire farming industry generates enough manure in five days to cover the entire continental U.S. land territory with the annual recommended amount for farm land.
• The entire farming industry generates enough manure in one day to cover almost 60% of the entire fertilizer-applicable farming land in the continental U.S with the annual recommended amount for farm land.
• The entire animal farming system generates enough manure annually to cover the entire extension of the continental U.S. 72 times with the recommended annual amount.
• The entire animal farming system generates enough manure annually to cover the entire fertilizer-applicable farming land extension of the continental U.S. 212 times with the recommended annual amount.

Although this report centers around the manure produced by farmed animals, it is the consensus of the Economic Transition Team (E.T.T) and the Humane Party that the problem that needs to be addressed is the 100% elimination of all exploitation of animals within United States Agriculture and all other industries.  It is in this capacity that the Economic Transition Team functions.