A new three-year study, completed at the behest of the Iowa legislature, has found that large livestock operations don’t smell as bad as advertised. In the early 2000’s, researchers at Iowa State and the University of Iowa recommended to the legislature certain regulations on large livestock operations. Before they would act, the legislature compelled the Department of Natural Resources to specifically study odor. After three year’s of objective sampling, DNR released this week that only 7% of facilities studied were above the study’s benchmark for odor. Focusing on how management affects odors, the researchers noted that the size of an operation did not directly relate to the odor produced, but that manure storage did. When stored outside the barns in lagoons or tanks, a higher odor level was noted than when manure was stored under the barns in deep pits. When manure was applied to fields, injection clearly reduced odor over manure broadcast across the field.

I’ve always said most folks smell with their eyes when it comes to livestock operations, and now we have proof that management practices play a much larger role in odor than size of livestock operation. Which is another reminder of why we must be the best managers we can be in the agriculture industry.