Model development for evaluating countermeasures effects against livestock manure management (study on reasonable budget planning for effective utilization of livestock manure)

Abstract

In this research, the model to quantify various environmental & social benefits comprehensively expected by governmental countermeasures execution was developed as a reasonable method of policy decision making on domestic livestock manure oversupply problem. The developed model was applied to Maebashi city, Gunma Prefecture as a case study. The model consists of "Sub-model for Agricultural Material Flow Analysis" considering Life Cycle Assessment and "Sub-Model for Characterization of Environmental & Social Benefits". The output of this model showed the cost-benefit ratio of proposed countermeasures. As the items of benefits, these 8 categories were chosen by panel method: water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution, global warming, acidification, protection of exhaustible resource, food self-sufficiency ratio and energy self-sufficiency ratio. As a result, "Compost use promotion" plan and "Feed production support" plan showed a large costbenefit ratio in some categories (not all). However, both measures had upper limits of possible budget distribution by model constraints. Therefore, it was suggested that the combination of countermeasures would be necessary in terms of both reasonable budget distribution and diversity of expected benefits. The result would contribute to the construction of the reasonable decision making method.