Livestock production and manure handling decisions often have been treated in the literature as separate enterprises. Policymakers, too, have ignored the interactive nature of manure management by focusing on land application for nutrient disposal. This study outlines a systems approach to describe the interrelated decisions producers face, using examples from North Carolina and Iowa that show how producers' attitudes toward manure management lead them to handle manure differently in different regions. In North Carolina, nutrients in manure are “not wanted.” There are economic incentives to treat manure, thus reducing its nutrient content, and to apply it on as little land as possible. In Iowa, nutrients are “not wasted.” Producers conserve the nutrients in manure and use them more fully, applying manure to higher value crops such as corn. Policies that influence manure management can be made more effective by accounting for the differences in producers' incentives to waste or want the nutrients.
