After four busy years with six official meetings in person, involving up to 15 international experts from six different European countries, the VERA test protocol ‘Housing Systems’ has been thoroughly revised to reflect the latest state-of-the-art.
As dairy farms are coming into focus in terms of ammonia emissions, the challenge of measuring in naturally ventilated animal houses shows up more frequently, and several VERA verification processes are targeting this application area. At several scientific conferences last year, the presentation of this work repeatedly caught the interest of the auditoriums.
Now, after final approval of the VERA Board, it is ready for publication. We are glad that the revised version, with all its detailed descriptions and recommendations, is now available for free download on our sub-page ‘test protocols’.
For your convenience, it comes with an Excel spreadsheet that provides detailed equations, including some assumptions for the calculation of the emissions when using tracer gas measurements.
This revised document was drawn up by nominated international experts of the International VERA Committee (IVC) for Housing and Management Systems and especially competent guests:
IVC members:
Julio Mosquera Losada, WUR, the Netherlands
Nico Ogink, WUR, the Netherlands
Anders Peter Adamsen, SEGES, Denmark
Bjarne Schmidt Bjerg, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Peter Kai, Aarhus University, Denmark
Eva Gallmann, University of Hohenheim, Germany
Eberhard Hartung, University of Kiel, Germany
Ewald Grimm, KTBL, Germany
Guests:
Peter Demeyer, ILVO Vlaanderen, Belgium
Paul Robin, INRA, France
Mélynda Hassouna, INRA, France
Sabrina Hempel, ATB Potsdam, Germany
Brigitte Eurich-Menden, KTBL, Germany
Ulrike Wolf, KTBL, Germany
Sabine Schrade, Agroscope Taenikon, Switzerland
Many thanks to these VERA experts for their effort and their excellent work on this particularly big task!