The LPES (Livestock and Poultry Environmental Stewardship curriculum) was published in 2001 by a team of experts primarily from land grant universities as an effort to assemble the "best of the best" from around the US. The curriculum assembles 26 lessons on topics such as animal dietary strategies, land application and nutrient management, manure storage and treatment, and odor management among others. In general, you will find the fundamental principles in the LPES lessons to remain relevant today, but public policy, technologies and management practices are likely to evolve with time. The LPES Curriculum is available on the web.
There are no national incentives for completing the curriculum. However, some states have chosen to use parts of this curriculum for state certification programs for animal manure management and/or nutrient management. In addition, some allied industry professionals rely on this curriculum as core training material for their organizations. Most commonly this curriculum is used as a national reference on animal manure issues and provides a sound base from which manure nutrient management programs can be built.
You may wish to contact your state Cooperative Extension specialist for animal manure issues or your state regulatory agency for environmental issues to see if there are state-specific educational requirements or incentives for use of LPES resources to address those requirements.
Rick Koelsch
University of Nebraska
rkoelsch1@unl.edu
eXtension Animal Manure Management web site
