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Evaluating The Costs Of Implementing Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans: Grouping The US Livestock Industry Into Representative Farms
Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org
Citation: Paper number 024095, 2002 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.10487) @2002Authors: David C. Moffitt, Robert Kellogg, Barry Kintzer
Keywords: Animal waste system, Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan, Cost and Capability Study, Livestock, Poultry, Representative Farms
USDA and EPA were mandated to determine the cost to the livestock industry of
implementing Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans. The USDA chose to estimate a national
cost with a strategy that involved the use of the 1997 Census of Agriculture, three National Animal
Health Management System Surveys for dairy, swine, and layers, and the Agricultural Resource
Management Survey for swine.
One of the major tasks in the USDA effort was the grouping of livestock into 25 representative farms
for the fattened beef, dairy, veal, confined heifer, broiler, layer, pullet, and turkey livestock sectors. A
USDA team looked at similarities in handling manure as the basis for the representative farm selection.
The representative farms were then used to identify 121 model farms, where a model farm was a
representative farm of a given size at a specific location that adds a regional perspective for costs.
All total there were 151,233 livestock operations with more than 35 animal units divided among the 121
model farms. The model farms were the basis for identifying components of a CNMP and associated
costs.