Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to Ease Workforce Standards for Energy Facilities Utilizing Livestock Manure

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has decided to ease the personnel standards for energy facilities utilizing livestock manure.

On the 10th, Park Su-jin, Director of the Food Policy Office at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, visited Icheon Bioenergy, an energy facility using livestock manure located in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province.

This visit was arranged to explain the "2030 Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Green Growth Strategy for the Livestock Sector" announced on the 3rd, and to listen to the necessary matters on-site for the smooth implementation of the policy.

The Ministry announced a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector by 18% from 9.4 million tons in 2018 to about 7.7 million tons by improving livestock manure treatment methods into bioenergy, biochar, solid fuel, etc., to reduce large amounts of greenhouse gases generated during the composting and liquid fertilizer processes of livestock manure, and through low-carbon feed supply such as low-methane feed management and productivity improvement by livestock species.

Sujin Park, Director of the Food Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (front row, right), is inspecting the biogas production raw material storage tank while receiving an explanation from Youngseop Yoo, Vice President of KEC Systems.

Icheon Bioenergy, visited this time, is an energy facility that produces 2,480 MWh of electricity annually using pig manure and other materials. It is responsible for improving livestock manure treatment methods as part of the livestock sector greenhouse gas reduction strategy.

At the on-site meeting, it was pointed out that despite the difficulty in hiring highly skilled technicians due to conditions in the livestock sector, the facility operation standards mandate the employment of environmental technicians for a certain number of days or more, and in the case of solid fuel, only livestock manure is allowed as raw material, causing difficulties in securing sufficient fuel efficiency, thus calling for related regulatory improvements.

At the meeting, Director Park said, "We will work with the Ministry of Environment and other related ministries to ease the personnel standards for operating energy facilities and review regulatory improvements such as the rationalization of raw material standards for solid fuel. In addition, we will identify and improve matters needed on-site to realize greenhouse gas reduction in the livestock sector."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.