Poultry litter to biogas: adding more value to farm waste

Smaller poultry businesses, comprising mainly broiler and egg producers and suppliers of day-old chicks, are helping address the need for job creation. But this growing industry has a problem: how to manage the environmental impact of ever-greater volumes of poultry litter. The premise of our research is that the industry needs to shift away from direct use of litter as a fertiliser, due to the high quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that accumulate in agricultural soil. Instead, individual farmers and entities, such as co-operatives, have a responsibility to utilise the litter produced by their businesses for deploying renewable energy-generation technologies for a more