There are various opportunities with manure management. Rusty Halvorson looks at what some of those are.
Environmental groups, including Food and Water Watch, have sued the EPA, arguing that it has failed to regulate manure runoff from large animal farms under the Clean Water Act, which they say threatens water safety across the U.S.
Lori Stevermer is the president of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) Board of Directors for 2024–2025. She is from Easton, MN. She sees opportunities in manure management that’s beneficial to producers – and she hopes the incoming Trump administration agrees.
“Manure does have value. And you know, for example, on our farm, we do an assessment with a third party, manure saved us $140 an acre in fertilizer costs. So it has value. I would hope that the administration continues to see that is a valuable nutrient. You know, when we look at regulations, sometimes where there’s a concern that manure or organic fertilizer might be regulated different than synthetic fertilizer, and certainly we hope that there’s consistency there. But I will say that when we were going through our stretch of unprofitability, the longest we had for a while, from ‘23 to early ‘24 that 12 to 15 dollars a head of value of manure was was helping a lot of our farmers. So it’s an important asset to our farms.”
President-elect Donald Trump has said he has big plans for the EPA, including a radical reordering of the agency’s workforce and “swift deregulatory decisions.”