The Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative expects the expansion of its membership base to enhance its ability to help Manitoba livestock producers achieve their full economic potential.
The Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative was established in 1998 to address environmental challenges related to the hog industry but its mandate has been expanded to include all of the major livestock groups.
It provides base funding, which is matched by industry and various funding agencies, to support research related to the management of livestock manure.
In July the MLMMI added seven new members to its board of directors.
Initiative executive director Brandy Street describes the effort to expand participation as fairly successful.
Over the last three years we’ve managed to attract the attention of all of the main livestock commodity groups and we now have three of those groups represented on the board, those being the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba, the Pork Council and the Manitoba Turkey producers and we’re receiving more project applications from these groups every time we put out a request.
Primarily the initiative has been involved with the hog industry and that’s because it was started up to address hog industry issues.
However we realize that manure management pertains to all livestock groups and so the mandate expansion has been intended to be more inclusive of each of the main livestock groups in the province.
We want to be able to address their individual research needs which often overlaps the needs of other livestock groups anyway.
We’ve already partnered with the chicken producers on one project and are working with the dairy producers on a separate project to get underway in the near future.
Street says the MLMMI is now in a better position to achieve its goal which is to help Manitoba livestock producers achieve their full economic potential through environmentally sustainable growth.
She expects to see more projects addressing the research needs of multiple livestock groups and more collaboration among those groups on projects in the future.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
