Serbia Danube River Enterprise Pollution Reduction Project (DREPR), Under the World Bank – GEF Investment Fund for Nutrient Reduction in the Black Sea/Danube Basin

And coordination of theMinistry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management - Republic of Serbia

Serbia Danube River Enterprise Pollution Reduction Project

Current Pollution Level

• The section of the Danube that flows through Serbia and Montenegro (SAM) is 588 km long of which about 138 km constitute the state border with Croatia and about 213 km with Romania.

• The Danube’s largest tributaries, Drava, Sava and Tisa, empty into the Danube on Serbian territory increasing its flow about 2.5 times. Other significant tributaries that empty into the Danube on SAM territory include Velika Morava, Tamis which comes from Romania, and Timok which constitutes parts of the SAM-Bulgarian state border.

• Serbia and Montenegro is one of the largest contributors to the Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) pollution of the Danube River.

• The Danube Water Quality Model developed in support of the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) for the Danube River, estimated SAM’s annual discharges at 72000 N t/y and 7000 P t/y, representing 13% and 14% of total loads, respectively.

Geographic Focus of the Project

DREPR

Objectives

1. Increasing the prevalence of and promoting environmentally friendly practices in the Danube Basin,

2. Reduction of the nutrient load discharged into the River Danube and its tributaries from livestock farms, notably pig and cattle farms,

3. Reduction of the nutrient discharge from slaughterhouses.

What are Nutrients: • Nutrients are nitrogen and phosphorous compounds whose surplus run off to watercourses

causing algae bloom which in turn suffocate the water flow, resulting in polluted, foul smelling water in such watercourse, unsuitable for bathing and drinking, and massive die off of living organisms such as crayfish, fish or aquatic plants due to oxygen depletion in such water.

Origin of Nutrients: • Nutrients originate primarily from cattle, pig and poultry excrete popularly referred to as manure

and slurry.

Projects Components - Activities

All project activities will be implemented within the following four components:

– Component 1. Regulatory Reform and Capacity Building– Component 2. Investment in Nutrient Reduction– Component 3. Water and Soil Quality Monitoring, Public

Awareness Raising and Replication Strategy– Component 4. Project Management, Implementation and

Monitoring

Component 1. Regulatory Reform and Capacity Building

– The project will support policy and legal reforms that target the reduction of enterprise nutrient pollution,

– Support SERBIA in its goal to gradually harmonize its environmental laws and regulations with those in the EU aquis.

– The project will also build technical capacity on the part of MPNRE – EPA, MAFWM and other institutions with legal mandates for enforcing water quality standards.

Component 2. Investment in Nutrient Reduction

1. Under DREPR, investment support will be provided for agricultural sector, notably to pig and cattle farms, slaughterhouses, and meat processing industry that are nutrient pollution hotspots.

2. The eligible activities to be supported under the project include: manure management, wastewater treatment, improved manure disposal, storage and use practices, and, in turn, farm nutrient management practices, resulting in the reduction of nutrient discharge into the River Danube and its tributaries.

3. Project support will be in the form of grants to partially fund such investments and large enterprises will be expected to cover the larger share of investments from own resources, commercial bank loans or other government support.

The main goal is the use similar types construction on farms.

Investment Fund

Farms60%

Demonstrational Farms70%

Slaughterhouses30%

Investment Fund

Soil sampling in Šabac area

Component 3. - Water and Soil Quality Monitoring, Public Awareness Raising and Replication Strategy

– Public information campaigns at the national and local levels to raise public awareness on nutrient containing waste management and water pollution, and their impact on public health, economy and ecosystems.

– The project will also institute on a pilot basis a “Public Environmental Information Sharing Scheme” in which information on pollution emissions from agro processing industry and their potential impact on public health and the economy would be shared with the public in an

easily interpretable manner. Component 4. - Project Management, Implementation and

Monitoring• This component will support project management, including project co-ordination and

administration, procurement, financial management and all reporting. All project outcome and results monitoring will be carried out under this component as well.

• MAFWM will hold the overall project implementation responsibility given that it has legal mandate under the laws of the Republic of Serbia for most of the activities supported by the project. This will ensure mainstreaming of environmental protection into livestock agricultural production and meat processing. It will undertake this responsibility through establishing a PIU.

Training and Information Center - TIC

• A Training and Information Center (TIC) will be supported as a knowledge resource base, accreditation and training center for trainers, extension agents, staff of MAFWM and MSEP/DEP, managers of farms and agro-processing facilities. The TIC will be located at the IAH, Belgrade-Zemun.

• Project will support IAH to become a model demonstration and training farm and improve the technical skills of the staff to become trainers for extension advisors, industry and policy enforcement staff of the relevant ministries and agencies.

• Farmers and slaughterhouses will be offered advice on proper nutrient, manure and slaughterhouse waste management through three Local Advisory Units (LAUs) in the project and the TIC staff will back stop the LAU staff with knowledge information and training.

Nutrient Reduction The objective of this component is to demonstrate to livestock farms and slaughterhouses cost-effective methods to reduce nutrient run-off and discharge into the Danube River and its tributaries; and to improve agricultural advisory service capacity to extend knowledge and adoption of these technologies in the project area.

Water monitoring:• Monitoring of water quality at the eight demonstration farms and the IAH. • Testing the effect of agricultural practices introduced at the eight demonstration farms and the

IAH to reduce the leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus to local surface and groundwater.

Soil Monitoring:• Monitoring of soil quality at the eight demonstration farms and the IAH. • One-hectare plots will be used to demonstrate and promote the use of good agricultural

management practices, • The impact of these practices on soil quality will be monitored with the aim of providing

demonstration studies to farmers and policy makers of Serbia. Soil samples at these nine sites will be analyzed by the Soil Science Institute in Belgrade.

Investments in Slaughterhouse Animal Waste Management• Selected slaughterhouses will be provided with incentives to comply with the EU Animal By-

products Directive. • The project strategy will be to minimize and separate the different types of wastes that are

produced in a slaughterhouse.• Assistance will be provided with measures to handle and treat the different types of wastes

according to their classification, in order to achieve the least cost for treatment and appropriate recycling for each.

• The project will support only those slaughterhouses in which the proper management of Special Risk Material, such as brain and spinal cord that may contain transferable diseases, is certified by the Veterinary Directorate for safety.

Benefits• Improvement of the environment conditions in our country;• Improved access to EU export markets for Serbian meat and meat products;• Education and help to the farmers to establish sustainable production;• Improved slaughterhouse operations in terms of waste water and animal waste;• Introduction of good agricultural practice;• Step in harmonization with EU standards and EU integration;• Honoring international Danube Basin and Black Sea protection conventions;• Establishment of the law and sanctioning of polluters; and• Improvement of knowledge and skills.

Short SWOT analysis of project effectiveness 1

Problems and obstacles:

• Long term waiting for necessary permits and legal papers from the Ministry in charge;

• Complicated procedures for farmers to get building licenses, and other papers for their objects (lack of experiences of farmers to collect all necessary documentations);

• Complicated procedures and other permits for slaughterhouses;

• Choose the best technology to full fill the request of Veterinary Directorate, Water Directorate, Department of Ecology and Europian rules;

• Poor financial status of Serbian industry and private enterprises, as well as farmers;

Short SWOT analysis of project effectiveness 2

Strength and opportunities:

• Individual farmers and industrial representatives are strognly interested to get part in DREPR project;

• Sufficient number of farmers who showed interest in the first cycle of application for Project;

• First NMP plans are finished, and some of farmers almost got their building license after preparing preliminary and detail design;

• PR and propaganda activities are very helpful as a necessary support for all filed activities, especially for LAU units;

• The first phase of PIC (Public Information Campaign), based on Information Campaign (TV shows, PR News, etc) and BTL activities (field seminars, presentations, etc.) is ongoing steadily every week or month;

• TIC Center started with their activities very good, and in the next 3 months training for future trainers and LAU will be finished.

• PIU team organized study tour to visit slaughter industries and waste water treatment in Austria and Germany.

DREPR projecting team

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management

Nemanjina 22-26/IX – Belgrade-Serbia

Phone: +381 11 363 1654, 363 16 75