The possibility for plants to utilize phosphorus in soil is a prerequisite for conducting agricultural production, both small scale and professional. Spreading of phosphorus fertilizers and manure is therefore seen as a necessity in today's agriculture in order to achieve high yield. Manure management, livestock farming and manure storage could contribute to the eutrophication of lakes and rivers. For instance, when the ground becomes saturated, phosphorus leakage could be seen in surface runoff or in point sources resulting from inadequate manure storage management. In the municipality of Växjö there is still many bodies of water that do not reach the Swedish environmental water quality standard of "good ecological status". This thesis has therefore analyzed the manure management and storage on agricultural farms which may have contributed to eutrophication in the municipality. The method for this thesis was a literature study, a questionnaire survey with 820 receivers and a summary of issued inspection reports from 2013. The results highlight the ways in which agriculture may have contributed to the eutrophication of lakes and streams in the municipality of Växjö. The survey showed that there is a large number of farmers that are unknown to the inspectors in the municipality and the inspection reports reveal many shortcomings in terms of manure management. The results also indicates that there is an overall lack of knowledge among farmers about why it is important to have a safe manure management as well as storing the manure safely. More information needs to reach the operators, higher standards and more regulatory controls are needed to reduce farms contribution to eutrophication and for Sweden to reach environmental targets and environmental quality standards for water.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hh-25820 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Klintenheim, Natalie |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för ekonomi och teknik (SET) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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