Chicken droppings cheap fertilizer for U.S. wheat

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - For Kansas farmer Jeff Fowler, planting and fertilizing a new wheat crop this fall is a fowl job. Literally.

As he prepares his southeast Kansas farm fields for planting hard red winter wheat, the primary bread-making grain, Fowler is mixing chicken droppings into the soil.

The reason? Money. Poultry waste, or chicken "litter," is a cheap alternative to the nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers that are key to growing a good wheat crop.

"We just started doing it this year," said Fowler. "It's because the cost of fertilizer is so high."

The benefits of poultry waste as fertilizer have long been known and valued by farmers. But the practice has traditionally been limited to those close to poultry operations.

But now, with commercial fertilizer prices so high -- over $100 an acre in some cases -- farmers far from poultry operations see the economic benefits of buying bird waste, even in light of transportation costs.

"It's a fantastic alternative to fertilizer," said Kansas State University soil specialist Doug Shoup. "Of all manure, it has the highest concentration of nitrogen, good calcium, good sulfur, and a bit of a liming effect. It is a little bit like Miracle Grow."

"There are a lot of producers using this," Shoup said.

Fertilizer prices have climbed to record levels during the past year, with nitrogen and phosphate prices more than doubling, though they recently have come off their peaks.

Because of increased costs, among other factors, many U.S. farmers have decided to either reduce the acreage they plant this fall or cut back on fertilizer and hope their farm fields will have enough residual nitrogen and phosphorous to carry another crop.

Significant supplies of poultry litter are being purchased from Arkansas and Oklahoma, which rank among the largest producers of poultry in the United States, Shoup said.

But the practice doesn't sit well with everyone.

An increased use of poultry litter as farm fertilizer can lead to high concentrations of phosphorus in surface run-off, potentially contaminating bodies of surface water, said Bill Hargrove, director of the Kansas Center for Agricultural Resources and the Environment (KCARE).

Indeed, Oklahoma has sued poultry producers over what it says is an excess of chicken litter spread as fertilizer that is polluting the state's watershed.

The Poultry Community Council has argued that poultry litter is a valuable economic commodity for farmers and that any contamination of waterways is comparable to areas where the chicken waste is not used.

A federal judge on Monday rejected Oklahoma's request for an injunction against spreading chicken litter, though the lawsuit remains ongoing.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam; editing by Jim Marshall)