30 January 2025

2 minute read

By: Global Ag Media

In 2020, 40% of all agricultural holdings (farms) in the EU had manure storage facilities, according to a recent Eurostat report. 

The highest shares of farms with manure storage facilities were in Slovenia (nearly 100%), Latvia (98%) and Estonia (92%). By contrast, the lowest shares were recorded in Cyprus (7%), Greece (11%) and Italy (18%).

This information comes from the 2020 agricultural census data on manure storage published by Eurostat today. This news item presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on manure storage.

Click to enlarge

Source dataset: ef_mp_ms

Decline in use of uncovered liquid manure storage reduces environmental risks

In 2020, 57% of farms with manure storage infrastructure had facilities for storage of solid dung, 16% had covered facilities for liquid manure, 10% had deep litter systems, 6% had pits below animal confinement, 5% had liquid manure storage without cover and the remaining 6% had manure storage in other facilities.

The share of holdings with uncovered storage facilities for liquid manure in the EU declined by 5 percentage points (pp) between 2010 and 2020.

Liquid manure storage facilities without cover, such as uncovered manure lagoons, tanks or ponds, present an environmental risk due to ammonia (NH₃) emissions and nutrient leaching or run-off into surface and ground waters.

In the Netherlands and Malta, there are no longer any farms with uncovered manure storage facilities. In many other countries, the share of farms with such facilities dropped significantly, especially in Luxembourg (-43 pp), Ireland (-36 pp), Germany (-35 pp) and Belgium (-32 pp).

However, in 2 EU countries, the use of uncovered liquid manure storage facilities has become more common, specifically in Spain (+5 pp) and Estonia (+3 pp), with slight increases also recorded in Czechia (+0.4 pp), Bulgaria (+0.2 pp) and Italy (+0.1 pp).