Clean and environmentally sound disposal of animal waste in the quantities that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) produce can only be described as a challenge. Designed to provide practical information, Environmental Management of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) covers the concepts and practices involved in the operation

The majority of meat, milk, and eggs consumed in the United States are produced in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO). With concentrated animal operations, in turn comes concentrated manure accumulation, which can pose a threat of contamination of air, soil, and water if improperly managed. Animal Manure: Production, Characteristics, Environmental Concerns, and Management navigates these important environmental concerns while detailing opportunities for environmentally and economically beneficial utilization.

Nutrients from livestock & poultry manure are key sources of water pollution. Ever-growing numbers of animals per farm & per acre have increased the risk of water pollution. New Clean Water Act regulations compel the large confined animal producers to meet nutrient application standards when applying manure to the land, & USDA encourages all animal feeding operations to do the same. The additional costs for managing manure (such as hauling manure off the farm) have implications for feedgrain producers & consumers as well. This report¿s farm level analysis examines onfarm technical choice & producer costs across major U.S. production areas for hauling manure to the minimum amount of land needed to assimilate manure nutrients. Illustrations.

Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs discusses the need for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement a new method for estimating the amount of ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, and other pollutants emitted from livestock and poultry farms, and for determining how these emissions are dispersed in the atmosphere. The committee calls for the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish a joint council to coordinate and oversee short - and long-term research to estimate emissions from animal feeding operations accurately and to develop mitigation strategies. Their recommendation was for the joint council to focus its efforts first on those pollutants that pose the greatest risk to the environment and public health.

The U.S. food system provides many benefits, not the least of which is a safe, nutritious and consistent food supply. However, the same system also creates significant environmental, public health, and other costs that generally are not recognized and not accounted for in the retail price of food. These include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, soil erosion, air pollution, and their environmental consequences, the transfer of antibiotic resistance from food animals to human, and other human health outcomes, including foodborne illnesses and chronic disease. Some external costs which are also known as externalities are accounted for in ways that do not involve increasing the price of food. But many are not. They are borne involuntarily by society at large. A better understanding of external costs would help decision makers at all stages of the life cycle to expand the benefits of the U.S. food system even further. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) with support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a public workshop on April 23-23, 2012, to explore the external costs of food, methodologies for quantifying those costs, and the limitations of the methodologies. The workshop was intended to be an information-gathering activity only. Given the complexity of the issues and the broad areas of expertise involved, workshop presentations and discussions represent only a small portion of the current knowledge and are by no means comprehensive. The focus was on the environmental and health impacts of food, using externalities as a basis for discussion and animal products as a case study. The intention was not to quantify costs or benefits, but rather to lay the groundwork for doing so. A major goal of the workshop was to identify information sources and methodologies required to recognize and estimate the costs and benefits of environmental and public health consequences associated with the U.S. food system. It was anticipated that the workshop would provide the basis for a follow-up consensus study of the subject and that a central task of the consensus study will be to develop a framework for a full-scale accounting of the environmental and public health effects for all food products of the U.S. food system. Exploring Health and Environmental Costs of Food: Workshop Summary provides the basis for a follow-up planning discussion involving members of the IOM Food and Nutrition Board and the NRC Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources and others to develop the scope and areas of expertise needed for a larger-scale, consensus study of the subject.

Advanced Bioprocessing for Alternative Fuels, Bio-based Chemicals, and Bioproducts: Technologies and Approaches for Scale-Up and Commercialization demonstrates novel systems that apply advanced bioprocessing technologies to produce biofuels, bio-based chemicals, and value-added bioproducts from renewable sources. The book presents the use of novel oleaginous microorganisms and utilization strategies for applications of advanced bioprocessing technology in biofuels production and thoroughly depicts the technological breakthroughs of value added bioproducts. It also aides in the design, evaluation and production of biofuels by describing metabolic engineering and genetic manipulation of biofuels feedstocks. Users will find a thorough overview of the most recent discoveries in biofuels research and the inherent challenges associated with scale up. Emphasis is placed on technological milestones and breakthroughs in applications of new bioprocessing technologies for biofuels production. Its essential information can be used to understand how to incorporate advanced bioprocessing technologies into the scaling up of laboratory technologies to industrial applications while complying with biofuels policies and regulations. - Presents the use of novel oleaginous microorganisms and utilization strategies for the applications of advanced technologies in biofuels production - Provides a basis for technology assessments, progress and advances, as well as the challenges associated with biofuels at industrial scale - Describes, in detail, technologies for metabolic engineering and genetic manipulation of biofuels feedstocks, thus aiding in the design, evaluation and production of advanced biofuels