Background
A 5200-cow dairy farm is under construction in Rock County. As part of the animal unit permit, the farm indicated that it intended to apply manure via irrigation. This raised controversy in the area with some environmental groups that claim this will cause odor problems and be detrimental to the environment. While applying manure via irrigation is not widely used in Wisconsin, there are farms in Wisconsin that have used this method for more than 20 years. WFBF does not have policy specific to this application technique.
Proposed Policy
The state Policy Development Committee proposes the following policy on page 15, line 12, “We support allowing manure to be applied via irrigation as long as its application rates and timing are in compliance with a nutrient management plan.”
