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Abstract
New livestock production systems, based on intensification in large farms, produce
huge amount of manures and slurries without enough agricultural land for their direct
application as fertilisers. Composting is increasingly considered a good way for recycling
the surplus of manure as a stabilised and sanitised end-product for agriculture, and
much research work has been carried out in the last decade. However, high quality
compost should be produced to overcome the cost of composting. In order to provide
and review the information found in the literature about manure composting, the first
part of this paper explains the basic concepts of the composting process and how manure
characteristics can influence its performance. Then, a summary of those factors such
as nitrogen losses (which directly reduce the nutrient content), organic matter humification
and compost maturity which affect the quality of composts produced by manure composting
is presented. Special attention has been paid to the relevance of using an adequate
bulking agent for reducing N-losses and the necessity of standardising the maturity
indices due to their great importance amongst compost quality criteria.