Assessment of concentrations and emissions of airbourne pollutants at various poultry operations

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The agriculture sector is a source of particulate matter, ammonia and greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, that get emitted into the atmosphere and contribute to poor air quality and climate change. The poultry sector is taking a proactive approach to their environmental stewardship and has made understanding their atmospheric emissions a high research priority. This proposal aims at addressing this research priority by measuring emissions of the course and fine fractions of particulate matter, ammonia, greenhouse gases as well as other gaseous contaminants from various poultry housing operations, manure storage facilities and land application events. A systems approach will be employed by following the life cycle of the manure generated in a barn through to its storage and eventual land application such that an integrated view of the atmosphere emissions can be generated for the whole farm operation. This whole farm approach will allow best management practices to be explored and developed that balance short term gains against longer term benefits for a suite of air contaminants emitted by the farming enterprise.