Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1496

Manitoba Pork Council is advising livestock producers to familiarize themselves with changes to the Manitoba Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation.

The new Manitoba Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation is part of the Environment Act and updates previous legislation.

It's one of several pieces of legislation intended to help protect the environment and it came into effect at the end of March.

Manitoba Pork Council Community Relations and Sustainable Development Director Peter Mah says 14 key areas of change have been identified.

"One of the most important and probably recognizable features is that the regulatory threshold has been reduced from 400 animal units to 300 animals units.

What that would mean is that more livestock operations would fall under the regulations. There's a list of other areas as well but some areas in particular, they want to look at, for instance, is the ban on winter spreading.

Any new or small livestock operation irrespective of size will no longer be able to spread manure in the winter time between the period of November 10th to April 10th of the following year.

Particularly for those producers who may have existing manure storages that pre-date the existing manure regulations, they would have to be registered by June 10th of this year.

They have to apply for registration and they have to go through a process of evaluation. Presumably, at that point, Manitoba Conservation would determine whether there's a need for upgrade and or perhaps even decommissioning of the lagoons. There's a host of those kinds of changes."

Mah says Manitoba Pork Council will summarize the 14 key areas of change in its next newsletter and the organization will be working closely with Manitoba Conservation to make all producers aware of the new rules.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.