New Proposal Tackles Phosphorus, Farmers

When James Anderson was operating seven broiler houses, his Hindsville farm generated 500-700 tons of litter per year. That was just about the right amount of litter to spread on his 400-acre farm, keeping his pastures green and his cattle healthy.

The nutrients in litter promote healthy grass for cattle, but they also challenge the ecosystem in area waterways. The buildup of phosphorus has generated a battle across state lines and is also being blamed for high rates of cancer in the Prairie Grove area.

Three proposed state resolutions attempt to regulate farmers and their spread of litter — one addresses allowable nutrient levels, another requires the state to educate farmers and a third calls for registration of poultry farms.

Anderson said he’s never spread poultry litter thick on his farm — no more than 2 tons per acre a year — and has followed best management practices for years.

Merle Gross, cooperative extension agent for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, said the proposed regulations may not affect farms like Anderson’s as much as they will poultry operations on small farms without enough land to continue spreading litter. Those farmers will be required to document where their litter goes and what is done with it when it gets there.

An idea for a poultry litter “bank” may be the answer, but Gross said the idea is still new. The bank would take litter from poultry farms and dispose of it in an approved manner so the farmers would have no paperwork or other responsibilities once it was delivered to the bank.

Gross said farmers are reluctant to give their litter away when they typically get $10 to $20 per ton for it. And they’d be out the cost of hauling the litter and the fertilizer they’ll need on the farm, he added.

Still, he said, some sort of group effort needs to be made to deal with the litter that can’t be spread in Northwest Arkansas anymore. Farmers in the Delta could use the litter, but the cost of transporting is a barrier.

“It could easily be solved with $147 billion dollars,” Gross said. “There’s not enough money in the state of Arkansas to do it without it being profitable.”

Other ideas, such as turning the litter to fuel, have also been discussed.

Cattle operations on property high in phosphorus are in the same boat as the poultry farmers, Gross said. The cost may be too high if they’re forced to buy commercial fertilizer for the nitrogen and potash that are also in litter.

James Spears, a cattle farmer in the Wedington community, said he typically figures at least two acres per cow. With only so many acres available and the vegetation production reduced with less fertilizer, the number of cattle has to also be reduced, he explained.

“If you have to lessen your herd, it hurts,” Spears said.

Katie Teague, water quality coordinator for the Cooperative Extension Service, is working hard to help farmers understand the new regulations.

“The hardest pill is, No. 1, someone telling them what to do, and, No. 2, being singled out,” she said.

The farmers don’t believe it’s fair that the regulations won’t be enforced for all landowners, only those with five or more acres, and they don’t apply statewide.

The regulations, as proposed, apply only to farmland in “nutrient-sensitive watersheds,” specifically, the Illinois River, Spavinaw Creek, Honey Creek, Little Sugar Creek, the Poteau River, and the White River above its confluence with the Buffalo River.

Gross noted that agriculture is decreasing in Northwest Arkansas and the growing human population may have more to do with watershed nutrient struggles than the poultry operations.

Anderson agreed, stating that litter is “a source of income” to farmers, while other landowners are more likely to over fertilize in their quest for green grass.

Spears also agrees. Smaller tracts of land also don’t have as much property for the nutrients to filter out, he said, calling the regulations a “kind of witch hunt to get the farmers.”

“Cattle is down 40 percent, poultry is down 8 percent, the only creature that’s up is humans,” Gross said. “There are fewer and fewer livestock and more and more humans. The biggest chunk of land out there isn’t farmland.”