ILVO Reference tasks for the environmental policy area

Setting

The Flemish livestock sector has been showing strong dynamics for several years. Various factors, including legislative ones, are causing a wave of investment in which the size of farms is also increasing significantly. This means that their impact on the environment is also potentially increasing. For this, an appropriate legislative framework must be developed that gives room for dynamism while taking people and the environment into account. The regulating body and the licensing authority want to respond optimally to this situation. In this balancing act, the Environmental policy area benefits from sound technical-scientific support in the field of environmental protection in agriculture. Since 2012, ILVO has been performing some specific reference tasks related to air emissions from agricultural activities and sustainable production techniques in agriculture.

Information

The main objective of these reference tasks is to generate objective information based on scientific research. For this purpose, various reports, memoranda and other documents are prepared. These are submitted to the Environmental Technology Reference Steering Committee. As soon as the steering committee releases these documents for further distribution, they are made available here.

Emissions measurement team

Research activities other than literature reviews were not included in the reference tasks until 2015. However, the past few years have shown that the need for research that goes beyond literature review is indispensable to fill specific knowledge gaps. For this reason, an additional reference task was started. To carry out this task, an emissions measurement team was established at ILVO in 2016.

Air scrubbers and and biobeds

The first measurement campaign of the measurement team focused on determining the removal efficiency for ammonia and odor of combined air scrubbers and biobeds attached to fattening pig houses in Flanders.

This final report (in Dutch) summarizes the results of the measurement campaign.

In the period November 2019 - March 2020, the measurement team conducted a shorter measurement campaign on biobeds around the time when the biobed filling material was being shaken.

The report of this measurement campaign (in Dutch).

Broiler houses with heat exchanger

De tweede grote meetcampagne van de meetploeg was op vraag van de stuurgroep gericht op vleeskippenstallen met AEA-stalsysteem P-6.4 (warmtewisselaar met luchtmengsysteem voor droging strooisellaag). Hoofddoel van de meetcampagne was het bepalen van de emissiefactoren voor ammoniak en geur voor dit stalsysteem.

Final report (in Dutch) - Air emission measurement campaign for AEA system P-6.4 for broilers

Themes

• The nitrogen reduction plan (PAS)
• Mitigating measures for odor emissions
• Updating emission factors for the Farm Animal Reference Manual:
  Within the framework of the ILVO reference tasks for the Environmental policy area, the assignment was given to carry out a scientific study into the emission factors for ammonia, odour and particulate matter included in the appendix to the EIR guideline book for agricultural animals. The purpose of the study was to determine whether the currently used emission factors need to be modified on the basis of new scientific insights.
  Evaluation of the emission factors for ammonia, odor and particulate matter as included in the MER Richtlijnenboek Landbouwdieren - 2018
  Every 3 to 4 years such a study is carried out by ILVO. The previous evaluation dates back to December 2014 (Brusselman & Demeyer, 2014).

Contacts

Loes Laanen, Annelise Bakelants, Peter Demeyer