"China's livestock and poultry production sector lacks necessary guidance and planning. It has developed randomly to meet market needs, and as a result, the livestock and poultry production in some regions has exceeded the areas' environmental carrying capacity," said Jin Jianming, former chief engineer of the State Environmental Protection Administration, which is currently known as the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Due to a lack of pollution treatment facilities, a large amount of manure and liquid waste is not effectively treated or used, leading to the need for environmental protection, Jin said. He warned that environmental problems caused by livestock and poultry production have become a significant impediment to the healthy development of the industry.

Last March, dead pigs discarded by animal farms were found drifting in Shanghai's Huangpu River. The scandal put pollution originated from the animal husbandry industry under public scrutiny, and indirectly sped up the making of a national pollution tackling regulation.

Stronger regulation

The Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Pollution Caused by Large-scale Breeding of Livestock and Poultry was promulgated to promote the sustainable development of the livestock and poultry production, Jin said.

The document spells out requirements for where animal farms are allowed to be situated, as well as for their waste disposal and recycling. Environmental impact evaluation is also required.

"We must pay equal importance to environmental protection and the development of the animal husbandry industry," said Yang Zhengli, a research fellow with the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture.

The regulations require that governments at or above the county level should make plans on preventing and controlling pollution generated by livestock and poultry production at the same time as they make the industry's development plan. Their industry development plans should take the environmental carrying capacity as well as pollution prevention and control into consideration.

While enhancing supervision over environmental impacts of the industry on the whole, the government will subsidize the construction of facilities for pollution prevention and control and the comprehensive utilization of waste, according to the document.

It stipulates that county-level governments can reward animal farms that voluntarily conform to pollution control standards stricter than those of the national and local governments.

The regulations state that enterprises producing organic fertilizers from their animal waste can enjoy preferential tax treatment, while purchasers and users of organic fertilizers shall be given subsidies no less than that given to purchasers and users of chemical fertilizers.

Animal waste is a valuable and useful resource, which can be used to produce biogas and organic fertilizers, said Dong Renjie, a professor at the Beijing-based China Agricultural University. He added that proper use of organic fertilizers can increase the concentration of organic matters in soil and increase soil productivity.

Yet in the past, due to the lack of necessary legal support and effective policy incentives, a large amount of agricultural waste such as animal manure had not been effectively used, but instead posed environmental hazards to the surrounding water and soil.

Moreover, the regulations state that power grid companies should purchase surplus electricity generated from animal waste as long as the electricity meets the technical standards necessary for it to be fed into the grid. Companies producing methane and biogas from animal waste can also enjoy preferential tax treatment similar to renewable energy producers.

"The regulations encourage the comprehensive utilization of waste, and deems it the fundamental solution to tackling pollution arising from livestock and poultry production," said Yang Zhengli, a research fellow with the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In foreign countries with tough environmental legislation such as Denmark, manure from farms has been collected and used as agricultural fertilizer growing crops.

It is not only waste that can be used, but also animal byproducts, according Karoline Bergendorff, a business development strategist at the Danish company Kopenhagen Fur. "In this way, the entire animal is used," she said.

While the regulations will promote the improvement of rural environment, it will also raise the threshold to enter the industry. Industry experts believe that after the implementation of the regulations, large-scale animal farms with sound environmental protection facilities will be able to further consolidate their market position.

Email us at: tangyuankai@bjreview.com