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As environmental regulations controlling direct land application of livestock waste increase, farmers search for ways to cost-effectively handle manure from their farms. Farmers’ goals include efficient and effective means to remove the objectionable characteristics of their manure so that it may be recycled in an environmentally friendly manner. Anaerobic digestion is one way to control odors, liquefy manure and decrease pathogen loading, while reducing system costs by selling byproducts from the manure treatment system. Odor control allows digested effluent to be recycled in an environmentally friendly manner by applying it to cropland.

Economic, nutrient, pathogen, energy production, and mass flows are under an ongoing quantification process for five integrated manure treatment systems in New York State. Each of these farms has recently installed an anaerobic digester as a method to control odor. The mass flow, nutrient flow, pathogen reduction, energy production and use, and economics of these systems are presented and compared. The systems vary by 1) type of digester: fixed film, plug flow, or mixed, 2) type of energy conversion: boiler, internal combustion, engine, or micro turbine, 3) digester feed: scraped manure from freestalls, separated tie stall manure, or manure with food waste added, and 4) farm size.