PATT day in Vic dedicated to biofertilizers recovered from livestock manure

About fifty people participated in a PATT Conference on new biofertilizer products recovered from livestock manure, organized by the BETA Technology Center of the UVic-UCC. The conference, which was held yesterday, Wednesday, in the Gothic Hall of UVic, served to bring together several actors interested in the valorization of livestock manure and to show some of the latest advances obtained in European projects underway in this area, as is the case of FERTIMANURE and NOVAFERT.

The initial part of the PATT Day (Annual Technology Transfer Plan) gave way to the presentations of several representatives of the Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda (DACC). Their interventions served to review the trends that the livestock sector throughout Europe is following to process and valorize the excrement, but also to describe the actions that are being carried out in Catalonia with the aim of improving fertilization practices, always with an eye on the objectives of climate neutrality to be achieved in 2030 and 2050.

Then, the deputy director of CT BETA and coordinator of the FERTIMANURE project, Laia Llenas, presented the biofertilizer products obtained in the five biorefineries that this project has built in several European countries, and of which the agronomic performance, the fit with the current regulation and the real potential of market outlets are being studied.

Various presentations on biofertilizers

For their part, CT BETA researchers Ana Robles and Jorge Senán introduced the NOVAFERT project, which has already begun work to demonstrate the technical, economic and environmental feasibility of a broad portfolio of alternative biofertilizer products recovered from various types of organic waste.

The program of the day was completed by the intervention of a representative of the company Sun Chemical Services, on the regulatory framework that affects these new products, and a presentation on their potential application in organic agriculture by Nagore Guerra and Ricard Carreras, researchers of CT BETA. Finally, a participatory activity was carried out with the attendees to determine their perception and acceptance of the new biofertilizer products and they were offered the possibility to travel to Muntanyola to visit the pilot biorefinery of the FERTIMANURE project.

The annual program of PATT Conferences is one of the reference instruments for the transfer of knowledge, education and training of the agri-food and forestry sector in Catalonia. Coordinated from the DACC, each year it counts with the collaboration of more than 250 entities and organizations of these sectors, companies, universities and research centers and other administrations.