Farmer fury as manure is deemed industrial waste
Animal manure is about to be reclassified in Victoria from a valuable by-product to industrial waste. This is what it means for your farm.
MANURE will no longer be deemed a valuable farm by-product under new Victorian environmental laws to come in on July 1.
The Andrews Government last week confirmed it was pushing ahead with controversial measures that define manure as industrial waste, restricting how farmers store, transport and use it.
Victoria’s Environmental Protection Authority has even proposed banning sheep and cattle grazing paddocks on which animal manure has been spread, instead of adopting the widely accepted industry practice of simply withholding stock for three weeks.
The EPA is also demanding anyone depositing, transporting or receiving more than 20 cubic metres of solid manure on their property each month must prepare a Declaration of Use document.
The DoU outlines “any potential harms to human health and environment, and handling requirements” for any low-risk waste on their properties — such as tyres, animal manures or effluent ponds.
Information in the DoU must then be supplied to anyone transporting or receiving a farmers’ animal manure — such as vegetable growers, compost facilities or another livestock producer.
The farmer must also take some responsibility for ensuring those who take the manure can lawfully receive it. Failure to comply puts farmers at risk of hefty fines.
“It means if a (chicken) litter truck rolls into a river they could fine me up to $500,000,” Lang Lang chicken meat grower Allan Bullen said.
The former Victorian Farmers Federation chicken meat group president, who has led farmer negotiations with the EPA over the past two years, said the authority had ignored his and others’ repeated calls not to define animal manure as industrial waste and to ease the regulatory burden on farmers.
“We argued it (manure) should by rights be (defined as) an animal by-product, with it’s own set of regulations,” Mr Bullen said. “We don’t want industrial waste permits applied to us.”
The EPA Determinations paper states: “manures arising from commercial, industrial or trade activities are industrial waste for the purposes of the Act 2017 and must be deposited and received at a lawful place”.
Chicken meat and egg producers will also have to ensure manure sent to cropping properties is free of dead birds, otherwise it must be sent to a composting facility that has the relevant EPA permit.
The EPA’s determinations paper also states all animal manure and effluent must be stored to ensure there is no off-site contamination and it is not stockpiled or spread on paddocks accessible to sheep or cattle.
The paper makes it clear the EPA regards Agriculture Victoria’s existing controls as inadequate, given they do not “explicitly deal with manures as a waste”.
It goes on to say the EPA’s “definition of waste will require manures to be addressed by the new waste framework expected to come into effect 1 July 2021”.
An EPA spokesman told The Weekly Times “it will not be necessary for farmers to obtain a permission to deposit or receive more than 20 cubic metres of manures each month as long as they meet the proposed determination criteria”.
However the determinations paper states farmers must still prepare a DoU and face fines if they are caught without one.
The spokesman said consultation on the regulations was “an ongoing process” and it “continues to work with Victoria’s farmers and their peak bodies to address and give certainty about how the new Environment Protection Act will affect them” in regard to their “new waste duties”.
Werribee egg producer Brian Ahmed said it was absurd to declare that animal manure an industrial waste to begin with.
“We’ve been recycling animal manure for generations,” Mr Ahmed said. “So why after all this time is it now a problem.”
Farmers are being urged to register for an EPA run information session at 10am on February 18 at https://engage.vic.gov.au/waste-and-resource-recovery-determinations
Submissions to the proposed determinations must be lodged at the same site by March 4.
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