18th June to 3rd August 2000

Background and Objectives

This electronic conference is part of a consultative process which includes a review of the experiences made in various countries from a technical, economic and policy perspective. The results of this electronic conference were fed into a face-to face workshop which was held from 17 to 20 September 2000 in Thailand where the objective is to draft guidelines for AWI. These guidelines were tailored to specific circumstances such as animal species and agro- ecozone. The goal was to be able to produce a document which formulates guidelines for the implementation of Area Wide Integration in a way that effectively assists decision-makers in optimizing the siting of animal production from an environmental, public health and social perspective. Within this document the cost and benefits of alternatives that can be implemented by either the public or private sector will be discussed, how to implement various tools, and the experiences other countries have had with implementing different policy instruments to improve the situation.

Conference Agenda

The conference started on June 18-22 with a general discussion of the problem, various solutions, and what Area Wide Integration (AWI) is about. During the following 5 weeks the introductory papers from each of the subgroups listed below were released one per week. The moderators of each of these subgroups formulated an agenda to be discussed during that week. The discussion of that specific paper began that week, but continue into the others. A summary paper was released on the 7th week (July 30th). The discussion of the various topics continued beyond the official end of the conference. The goal of each subgroup discussion and some of the questions that were examined are listed below. The conference ended with a summary of the outcome of each group and a general discussion (July 15-August 3rd).
For each subgroup, there was one discussion paper prepared by the moderators. The papers were e-mailed to registered participants and were also available for download on the Website.

General forum: June 18-22

Goal: To discuss the problems and identify the issues surrounding Area Wide Integration.

Manure Management And Environmental Impact (June 25-July 2)

Goal: To discuss the various options available for recycling manure:

• How do we go about assessing nutrient management?
• What are the various models/methods for assessing nutrient / mass balances?
• Are there different concerns between pigs, dairy, cattle, and poultry?
• What are the options for manure recycling?

Animal and public health - (Paper introduced July 2nd)

Goal: To discuss the human and animal health impacts associated with various forms of discharge and the spreading of manure

• What are the public health issues?
• What are the animal disease challenges?

Livestock production in a spatial analysis and planning context - (Paper introduced July 9th)

Goal: To understand what type of land use and rural planning that should be considered with regards to area wide integration

• What are our experiences with the techniques for monitoring animal waste distribution and land-use?
• How can spatial analysis be used to improve our understanding of critical areas?
• How does the build up of non-point source pollution enter into land planning?
• How can this be integrated to land use-planning policies?

Social aspects - (Paper introduced July 16th)

Goal: To discuss the social aspects that need to be considered when implementing area wide integration.

• What is the role of small rural producers in industrial livestock production?
• How are the rural producers linked with the urban markets?
• What are the policies or institutions facilitating such linkages?
• Are there certain social and equity aspects that should be considered when promoting area wide integration?
• Are there certain opportunities for and threats to employment that should be looked at more closely?

Economics and policy options- (Paper introduced July 23rd)

Goal: To explore whether certain policy instruments can be put in place to facilitate the area wide integration elsewhere.

• What are the successful cases?
• How is legal liability involved?
• Are there successful contractual arrangements between crop and livestock production?
  What made these successful?
• Does increased regulation result in relocation of production to other countries?

Concluding forum: July 30-August 3

Goal: To summarize the outcome of each topic and formulate recommendations

Download all the discussion's summaries and the discussion keynote Papers of the Electronic conference!