Mexico promotes technology for the treatment of waste from pig farms
Biodigesters function as energy savers and represent a solution to mitigate the impacts on the environment in rural areas with livestock activity, where they reduce the polluting potential of organic waste.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is promoting the installation of biodigesters for the management and treatment of pig waste, seeking to reverse the environmental damage caused to ecosystems.
Agriculture, through the National Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIFAP), is executing the project “Characterization and use of by-products derived from a biodigester, based on pig waste”, developed by its researchers at the Centro Altos de Jalisco Experimental Field of the Institute, who were in charge of validating this technology in 2021.
The discharges of solid and liquid animal waste are a dilemma facing the pig farming sector due to the lack of training for producers, insufficient resources and a low level of environmental awareness, said the Ministry of Agriculture.
In Mexico, he said, biodigesters have been used on pig farms for biogas production and in the last decade it has been a method for treating wastewater.
However, he explained, the adoption of this technology is still low and is usually used mainly in medium and high density production systems.
For this reason, INIFAP promotes these systems as energy savers and a solution to mitigate the impact on the environment in rural areas with livestock activity, where they reduce the polluting potential of organic waste (animal manure), he said.
He pointed out that the physical-chemical composition of the effluents from pig farms is variable, so the system generates a final discharge that complies with the limits permitted for use as irrigation water and discharge into rivers and natural or artificial reservoirs.
The technology can also be adapted to pig farms in the states of Jalisco, Sonora, Guanajuato, Michoacan, Queretaro, Yucatan, Veracruz and Puebla, which account for approximately 85 percent of national production, he said.
The Ministry of Agriculture explained that the project consists of an anaerobic biodigester and a lagoon system for the removal of organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus from the waste generated in pig farms.
He explained that the biodigester is built of high-density geomembrane and its effluent is transferred to four interconnected treatment lagoons, which are designed to reduce the concentration of solids in the mixture with a residence period of approximately 25 to 30 days.
For its installation, the type of farm, the location, the capacity of the facilities and the drainage and channel network are taken into consideration, with minimum slopes to channel the liquid waste into pits or sumps to continue with the treatment.
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