Abstract
The current state of manure treatment and utilization in the Korean cattle industry was investigated to determine how best to bring about improvement. A questionnaire as well as an onsite interview of 160 beef cattle farms was administered in Korea's City X in Chungcheongbuk-do province. Next, for farms with 8 to 75 head of breeding cattle, different types of composting were identified with a focus on the differences between the methods of manure treatment and the methods of utilization. Through this study three different methods of dealing with manure were identified. Type A, in which at least 50% of the manure is self-use which lowers feeding and labor costs. Type B, in which at least 50% of the manure is either sold or given away, was found to still warrant the cost of collection as well as reduce the workload of the manual harvesters, which helped to both decrease the cost of subsidiary materials and promote compost sales. Type C was when neither method was practiced enough for it to fit into either previous type. Several challenges were identified. For example, there is a lack of treatment facilities for type C composting, and there is a growing need for manure processing machinery and facilities. An attractive approach to meeting these challenges is constructing co-composting facilities.
