There is currently widespread agronomic use of poultry waste. However, there is need to increase use and refine current use to address both agronomic and environmental concerns. The increased emphasis on surface and groundwater protection will require proper management of all nutrients. Waste application rates must be based on comprehensive nutrient management planning that considers. waste characteristics, application equipment, cropping systems and management, and soil productivity. Dissolved air flotation sludges can be used agronomically, but care must be taken to avoid physical clogging of soil. Composting normal production mortality is viable, but additional research is needed on composting hatchery waste and, particularly, catastrophic mortality. Litter and manure will continue to increase in use as a nutrient source, but more emphasis must be placed on achieving proper agronomic loading rates. Due to land area shortages, transport of poultry waste for sale at less than cost will become common in certain areas. Agronomic utilization will continue to grow as the most common means of managing poultry waste.

Poultry meat and eggs are rapidly becoming the major source of animal protein in the diets of American consumer's. Such expansion has resulted in a similar increase in waste management problems. The national production of broilers and mature chickens was 5.68 billion, 242 million turkeys, 31 million ducks, and 69 billion table eggs in 1989 based on the USDA National Statistics Survey. Annual production of fecal waste from poultry flocks was 8.8 million tons on a dry weight basis plus more than 106,000 metric tons of broiler hatchery waste. Add to this 37 million dead birds and condemnations at processing plants (figures are also from USDA for 1989 based on USDA National Statistics Survey). When all this waste is added together, the task of keeping the environment clean becomes monumental. The following waste management practices can and must take care of these poultry industry waste products: sanitary land fill, rendering facilities, extrusion machinery, compost plants, lagoons or holding tanks, and land application techniques.