Putting a price on manure isn’t easy for buyers or sellers.
For the seller, a good price may depend on local competition.
For the buyer, the manure needs the right stuff to feed the field, but measuring that in manure isn’t as straightforward as when buying synthetic fertilizer.
For buyers and sellers, the manure needs to be close enough to the field so trucking is affordable.
Trevor Wallace of Alberta Agriculture’s environmental stewardship division said the issue is complicated.
“There is no one answer when it comes to price. It has to be the right price for you as a producer,” he said.
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The dramatic increase in fertilizer costs is creating a new opportunity for livestock producers to market their largest byproduct at a profit.
“(Manure) has producers who once considered it to be something they had to deal with (now) looking at it as a revenue source in their operation,” Wallace said.
Transportation
Manure contains many of the same major nutrients found in synthetic and inorganic fertilizer: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
However, it also contains water, so trucking and distribution are major factors when determining its value because manure is less affordable than synthetics on a weight for weight basis.
Organic vs. inorganic
Manure’s nutrients are not entirely available to plants as soon as they hit the field. The organic product needs microbial help to become plant friendly, with only 25 percent of the nitrogen available in the season of application.
Inorganic fertilizer is immediately plant ready.
Tricky comparisons
In manure, phosphorus and potassium are measured in the total amount or as a percentage of each mineral per tonne.
In fertilizer, the measurement is based on the percentage of phosphate in a sample of phosphorous fertilizer and a percentage of potash in a sample of potassium.
To level the playing field, a pounds per tonne measurement of phosphorus in manure needs to be multiplied by 2.3 to be compared to the pounds of phosphate in a tonne of phosphorus fertilizer. For potash, the potassium measurement must be multiplied by 1.2 to be on the same footing.
Liquid manure is more available to plants than solids, but solids have the advantage of deferred release over multiple seasons. Solids also build soil better.
Soil building
Wallace said one of manure’s biggest advantages is its ability to improve soil and increase yields.
“Measuring manure is more than the N, P, K content or whether you get it in this year’s crop or in subsequent years,” he said.
“It’s also about what we call the non-N, P, K benefit. This has been shown to be from 25 to 75 percent of the economic value of manure.”
Manure’s benefits as a fertilizer source are amplified in soil low in organic matter and biological activity.
“Then there are the micronutrients,” Wallace said.
“But when it comes to determining their value, they only count if the producer was considering replacing them with a commercial product.”
Two ways to price
Manure lacks a commodity market to create price discovery, so prices are based on what the market will bear locally. For buyers, it is the replacement value of manure’s major nutrient components.
“One way is to get the manure tested and price the replacement of the major nutrients with commercial fertilizer,” Wallace said.
“Add any additional transportation costs associated with the additional weight and the costs related to application of manure and that is the price.”
Another method takes into account nutrients that are released in years following manure application.
It’s usually considered inappropriate to include these nutrients when comparing manure and inorganic fertilizer on a season to season basis because producers don’t tend to overapply inorganic fertilizer in a single season. However, delayed release can be considered if a value is being assigned to soil building attributes.
Agronomists suggest that the poorer the soil’s condition, the greater the value of manure above a single year’s replacement of major nutrients from inorganic fertilizer.
The bottom line
The true net economic value of manure is equal to the cost of the inorganic fertilizer it replaces in the year of application, as well as the residual value of the nutrients that will not need to be applied in the second and third years.
Add to this the “non-N, P, K” response benefits and subtract losses that can be estimated due to soil tillage performed during incorporation and then subtract the original application costs.
“One thing for sure, the price has gone up along with (inorganic) fertilizer,” Wallace said.
