Agriculture Business Week

Uncollected chicken manure could cause a lot of headaches to poultry growers. An owner of a poultry farm in Bulacan has never collected the chicken manure, which has mounted up to more than one foot.

For the years, the chicken manure has been creating a lot of havoc. It has been emitting ammonia and sulfides, which are dangerous to the health of the birds as well as to humans. The manure has caked and became continuously wet, as the bottom portion never got any chance to become dry. Now that the owner is thinking of improving his poultry houses, he realizes the extreme difficulty of getting rid of the manure.

In a related development, we read in a BPRE research report that unprocessed chicken manure used by many Benguet vegetable farmers contains Bacillus cereus, an aerobic spore forming bacteria, which can contaminate vegetables and cause human illnesses.

In their report on a study on the contamination of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, and celery after harvest in Benguet, Dr. Ma. Cristina B. Gragasin, Agnes Wy, Perlina Sayaboc, and Miriam Acda said that two types of illnesses are attributed to the consumption of foods contaminated by Bacillus cereus. The first type is characterized by abdominal pain and diarrhea, while the other type is characterized by acute attack of nausea and vomiting. Their data showed that the use of chicken dung as organic fertilizer needs to be monitored and regulated.

Incide6tally, more and more Benguet vegetable farmers are now using organic fertilizer, most especially BIO 3 N 1 which is distributed widely in Trinidad, Benguet by HQ Agricare Trading. This bio-organic fertilizer is another product manufactured by Novatech Agri-Food Industries specifically for vegetable production in the highlands.

BIO 3 N 1 contains processed chicken manure and some amount of carbonized rice husk to improve the soil texture. Harmful microorganisms in the fresh chicken manure have been eliminated during processing. Its nitrogen content is totally organic and has not been propped up with the addition of inorganic nitrogen like urea. Thus, it emits a smell that is indeed pleasing to the nose, making it a user-friendly organic fertilizer.

In La Trinidad, Benguet, BIO 3 N 1 is sold in the stores of Sunrise Agri Supply.