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Community Investments in Manure Management

World Bank

By IW:LEARN

December 10^th, 2019

There are over 3 million small farms and households lacking financial resources in Romania. The Integrated Nutrient Pollution Control Project (INCP Project) is therefore building up community projects for manure management. The INCP Project has shown good results and is now in its third phase of implementation, continuing its mission at a national level.

Until now, the Project has developed 104 manure community storage platforms. These have been transferred to the local authorities, along with the equipment necessary for collecting and operating the platforms. The platforms, used for composting manure collected from small animal raisers, has proved to be the best solution for the small farms and households that cannot afford building individual manure storage capacities.

The main issue from the start has been to convince the local authorities that the platforms are a necessity for the community. In 2008, few of the mayors understood the effects of nutrient pollution on the environment and on the population’s health. Further, they also did not make the connection between improper manure management practices, and increase nutrient pollution.

Due to public awareness campaigns conducted between 2008 and 2017, the knowledge of the local authorities on nitrate pollution increased. When the new Competitive Financing Program was launched in February 2018, the number of applications was much higher than expected, having a value of almost the double of the Project’s budget allocation. The INPC Project – Additional Financing is planning to build more than 90 manure management platforms by 2021, increasing the platform investments to almost 200.

Despite this, the INPC Project can cover less than 10% of the communes in Romania that are in need of help. One of the key tasks ahead is therefore to continue spreading awareness of the importance of investing in such platforms, both conserving water resources and offering viable solutions to the local farmers.