Environmental impacts of livestock excreta under increasing livestock production and management considerations: Implications for developing countries

Increased livestock production under increasing global human population and wealth results in increased discharge of livestock excreta, which may cause more greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions. In addition, heavy metals, residual antibiotics, and pathogens contained in excreta may impose biosafety risks in its utilization. Technologies such as anaerobic digestion, composting and pyrolysis of excreta can improve the biosecurity in utilization, while diet manipulation for livestock, amending inhibitors and optimizing manure applications are some of the strategies to use to reduce greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions from excreta application. Novel excreta processing technologies and effective mitigation practices will need to be developed to sustainably manage excreta and minimize the environmental health hazards in the land application of livestock excreta.