Ammonia emission factors for permitted pig and poultry operations in the UK

"Agriculture produces 88% of the UK's ammonia emissions, which are predominantly released during: the storage and spreading of manures and slurries, and; from the application of inorganic fertilisers. Ammonia is also emitted from the housing of animals. Ammonia damages sensitive natural habitats and contributes to particulate pollution in urban areas.

The four UK environment agencies use standard pig and poultry ammonia emission factors for permitting assessments and to inform annual emissions reporting by operators. The standard emission factors used are based on a combination of the UK Ammonia Inventory data, emission mitigation reductions reported in the Intensive Rearing of Poultry or Pigs best Available Techniques (BAT) reference document, operator specific monitoring and verified reductions (usually from the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany) provided by technology companies.

The UK environment agencies have identified the need to update our respective published emission factors to reflect more recent evidence and modern livestock management practices, genetics and nutrition. We aim to better align the emission factors used across the UK and standardise how emission factors are adjusted to account for mitigation techniques to improve consistency across UK permitting and emissions reporting.

The UK environment agencies have collectively reviewed the emissions factors from latest Inventory of Ammonia emissions from UK Agriculture. Initially reviewing the emission factor tables provided by the Inventory Team and back calculating to understand how they have been derived, we have identified several areas where additional expert input is needed to better understand the

derivation of certain figures, the descriptions of housing systems referred to and how the inventory emission factors can be applied to farm operations on typical permitted farms across the UK. The aim of this project is to provide answers to these questions and a suite of recommended ammonia emission factors and abatement factors for a range of standard pig and poultry housing systems and management techniques."

Additional information: "You are invited to quote for the above in accordance with the attached documents.

Instructions on what information we require you to provide is in Section 4 of the Request for Quotation document.

Your response should be returned to the following email address by 16:00 on 28 October 2022: thomas.judd@environment-agency.gov.uk

Many thanks for your interest in this project."