About the Handbook

The Poultry Environmental Quality Handbook is an online resource of technical bulletins and weblinks designed to provide information regarding the environmental impacts and resources associated with the U.S. poultry industry. In 1990, the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) in cooperation with the US Poultry & Egg Association (USPOULTRY), US-Environmental Protection Agency, and the Cooperative Extension Service at a number of land grant universities created resource materials for the poultry industry and compiled then within the project entitled: The Poultry Water Quality Handbook. This new version of the handbook was designed to encompass not only water quality, but also other environmental issues that are associated with poultry production and processing. This handbook, now as a third edition, is available for the first time as an online resource with downloadable pdf documents and weblinks to direct you to additional internet publications and materials. This website is a dynamic resource that will continue to accumulate publications and materials as they are produced to be made available to anyone with an interest in finding information on poultry environmental issues and resources.

About the USDA-NRCS

USDA-NRCS is a vested partner in the PEQH Handbook and member of the original Poultry Water Quality Consortium. They have been instrumental in the formation of this poultry environmental quality handbook website.

The NRCS was born out of troubled times — the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. Drought and dust storms ravaged the Nation’s farmland, stripping away millions of tons of topsoil and carrying it all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. What originally began as the USDA Soil Conservation Service in 1935, is now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a name change that highlights their broader mission of promoting natural resource conservation practices across the country.

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