International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Review How Safe is Chicken Litter for Land Application as an Organic Fertilizer?: A Review Margaret Kyakuwaire 1,2,*, Giregon Olupot 2, Alice Amoding 2, Peter Nkedi-Kizza 3 and Twaha Ateenyi Basamba 2 1 Department of Agriculture, Kyambogo University, P.O. Box 1, Kyambogo, Kampala 759125, Uganda 2 Department of Agricultural Production, School of Agricultural Sciences, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala 759125, Uganda;
[email protected] (G.O.);
[email protected] (A.A.);
[email protected] (T.A.B.) 3 Department of Soil and Water Sciences, University of Florida, 2181 McCarty Hall, P.O. Box 110290, Gainesville, FL 32601-0290, USA; kizza@ufl.edu * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 2 August 2019; Accepted: 26 August 2019; Published: 20 September 2019 Abstract: Chicken litter application on land as an organic fertilizer is the cheapest and most environmentally safe method of disposing of the volume generated from the rapidly expanding poultry industry worldwide. However, little is known about the safety of chicken litter for land application and general release into the environment. Bridging this knowledge gap is crucial for maximizing the benefits of chicken litter as an organic fertilizer and mitigating negative impacts on human and environmental health. The key safety concerns of chicken litter are its contamination with pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, helminthes, parasitic protozoa, and viruses; antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes; growth hormones such as egg and meat boosters; heavy metals; and pesticides. Despite the paucity of literature about chicken litter safety for land application, the existing information was scattered and disjointed in various sources, thus making them not easily accessible and difficult to interpret.