12/19/06 National Livestock Feed Management

American Rancher December 19, 2006 Washington State University Extension is leading a nationwide program to help livestock and poultry operators and others develop ways to meet stricter environmental regulations for managing nutrients and to protect water quality by managing how and what livestock eat. Joe Harrison, an Extension specialist at the WSU Puyallup Research and Extension Center, is project director for the National Feed management Education Project, which is funded with a two-year $425,000 grant from the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service. Harrison says they are really developing the infrastructure for NRCS to implement their feed management practice standard. Harrison: "There is actually two phases to it. One is to provide educational information for what are called technical service providers. They are most typically known as nutrient management planners. Then the other part of the educational program is for consulting nutritionists. And both of these two audiences, nutrient management planners and consulting nutritionists, play critical roles in the implementation of the feed management standard at a livestock operation." The goal of the education project is to help producers adopt feed management practices that keep farms from accumulating excess nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous, and losing those nutrients to the environment. I'm Bob Hoff.