There’s an on-farm product that’s full of potential to those with a waste-not, want-not approach — animal and poultry feces. What many see as nothing more than smelly manure to be shoveled away could, in fact, help advance the agricultural industry and beyond.
Mahmoud Sharara, director of NC State University’s Food Animal Resource Management and Sustainability (FARMS) Center, says this digestion by-product may be the key to creating bespoke self-sustaining farm systems and biofuels, offering greater profits and revenue-enhancing streams for farmers.
“What is being called waste is actually an input to a lot of valuable products,” says Sharara, an associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering. “The nutrients and energy contained in animal manure can be processed and harnessed for so many opportunities.”
Efficiency and Resiliency
Animal and poultry agriculture is big business in North Carolina. Food animals make up 70% of North Carolina’s $100 billion agriculture economy. With nationally top-ranking poultry and swine industries that produce millions of pounds of meat, the costs associated with production mean that efficient farming systems are crucial.
“FARMS answers a lot of questions related to animal protein production efficiency,” Sharara says. “The by-products coming from animal production are important outputs of the system that historically have not been utilized as efficiently as possible. Better use of animal manure and by-products directly connects to benefits related to the competitiveness of food production in the U.S.”
Improving efficiency includes developing value-added products from animal waste.
“The nutrients in animal manure can be directly processed to become fertilizer or nutrient inputs for growing crops,” Sharara says. “We can customize the nutrients for different crops, targeting their specific growth needs to increase yield. In addition, a lot of the animal processing by-products, including fats, oils and grease, can directly enter into the animal feed supply chain for aquaculture production or other feed.”
Manure Marketplace
Stephanie Kulesza, NC State soil scientist and platform director of integrated, sustainable food animal systems for the university’s Food Animal Initiative (FAI), is working in collaboration with Sharara through an exploratory effort called the Manure Marketplace. A joint effort between NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Veterinary Medicine, the FAI is focused on advancing food animal agriculture.
While the name is memorable, Manure Marketplace tackles a serious challenge — connecting livestock producers who must dispose of excess manure with farmers who could use it as a valuable organic fertilizer. The project is supported by NC State’s Advancing Food Animal Innovation and Talent grant, part of a universitywide push to spark innovation and workforce development in livestock systems.
Kulesza’s team is starting where many innovators don’t: with the people.
“I’ve always wanted to explore a manure exchange tool, but it’s a huge resource investment that warrants proof-testing,” she says. “This initial grant gives us a chance to test the waters — see how producers are currently managing manure and whether there’s interest in improving how we connect supply and demand.”
She says the first step is understanding how manure is being handled today: how it’s stored, transported, regulated and valued (or not) in the eyes of those managing it. The work starts with producer surveys, an advisory board of producers and an economic and agronomic study to shape a future tool.
Funded by the grant, Kulesza hired undergraduate students to conduct over 100 interviews with swine, poultry and row crop farmers to better understand their current waste management strategies and the types of tools that would help them make decisions about how to convert their manure into organic fertilizer.
Kulesza and her graduate student are synthesizing the data and preparing to publish their findings. It’s a starting point for more exploration.
“This isn’t the development of a marketplace just yet,” she says. “It’s more about mapping the current system and identifying how a tool might add value or if other approaches might be better.”
Farm-Generated Fuel
Animal manure can also be harnessed into energy such as biofuels. For example, covering manure storage allows farms to harvest methane and purify it as fuel, providing a renewable energy source and an alternative revenue stream for livestock producers.
The adoption of this management system means less reliance on external resources for power, fertilizer and imported animal feed.
“The harvesting of the energy and the nutrients means farmers are able to produce an increasing percentage of what their animal production requires,” Sharara says. “That reduces their vulnerability and dependence on the global supply chain of changing markets, like energy and fertilizer prices, thereby ensuring the continuity of production.”
And finding new, economically viable uses for this underutilized resource also decreases the amount of nutrients that end up as unwanted emissions in the air or water.
“Waste management helps diversify income and production, adding to the health and well-being of our rural economy where many of these food animals are produced,” he says.
Climate-Smart Agriculture for All
Current research initiatives of FARMS include a project funded by the North Carolina Department of Justice that models how swine production systems can manage manure in swine lagoons during extreme weather events. This project is led by Sharara and a team of NC State colleagues — Mohamed Youssef, Sara Shashaani and Sarah Larson — who bring expertise in modeling; irrigation and drainage; optimization; and climate to solve this challenge.
“We set out to build a model that simulates farm operation and uses historical weather and future weather predictions to allow us to understand the critical points that can affect the swine production system,” Sharara says. “From there, we developed recommendations to our growers to manage the liquid and the manure in their swine lagoons and minimize the risk from future climate events that may impact the structural integrity of the lagoons.”
Sharara is working with postdoctoral researcher Yousef Abdalaal and graduate research assistant George Hotelling to create and test a user-accessible application based on the model. While still in testing, the app — dubbed adaptive lagoon effluent resilience tool, or “ALERT” for short — will allow farmers to input conditions in real time and better maintain their swine production and lagoon systems.
Additional projects led by the center address sludge management in lagoons and treatment structures, including evaluating commercial biological products to reduce sludge and optimizing extraction and drying processes to manage sludge.
FARMS also collaborates with industry partners, nonprofit organizations, and state and federal agencies to advance value-added innovations through sponsored research, training, tours and consulting services.
More to Digest
Momentum continues to build for FARMS. In the spring, Sharara attended a fact-finding delegation in Denmark hosted by the biogas and food and agricultural advisories of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. During the trip, he met with other animal and poultry waste management professionals from around the world to focus on the evolving role of agriculture in energy production.
“We spent a week learning about the interaction between farms, value-added industry and public actors in advancing biogas and related technologies,” Sharara says. “We are thrilled to apply what our international colleagues are doing in the field in our work.”
In 2027, NC State will host the Waste to Worth Conference, an event FARMS was instrumental in securing, to showcase research and innovation and bring national experts on valorization (creating value from agricultural waste) to support North Carolina farmers and industry. The center is also working on projects with the FAI to help find synergies and new solutions.
“Stay tuned,” Sharara says. “FARMS is open for business and excited to work with industry, nonprofit agencies, and state and federal partners to help improve waste management and create value-added innovations for our growers.”
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