A multi-criteria decision making approach to manure management in the Netherlands

The intensification of livestock operations in the last few decades has resulted in an increased social concern over the environmental impacts of livestock operations and thus making appropriate manure management decisions increasingly important. A socially acceptable manure management system that simultaneously achieves the pressing environmental objectives while balancing the socio-economic welfare of farmers and society at large is needed. Manure management decisions involve a number of stakeholders and decision makers with different and conflicting views of what is acceptable in the context of sustainable development. This paper developed a decision-making aid based on a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach to address the manure management problems. This paper has demonstrated the application of goal programming (GP) and compromise programming (CP) to evaluate key trade-offs between socio-economic benefits and environmental sustainability of manure management systems while at the same time taking decision makers’ conflicting views of the different criteria into account. The proposed method is a useful tool in assisting decision makers and policy makers in designing policies to encourage economically and environmentally sustainable manure management systems.