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Cross Country: Checking in on manure digesters and farmer-entrepreneurs

John F. Oncken  —  7/24/2008 4:44 pm

Recycling dairy feed, biomass and wallboard -- an update.

What ever happened to...? What about...? What is...?

Readers of this column often ask about the people, farms and ag businesses that have been written about in months and years gone by. Now is the time for an update.

What about manure handling on Wisconsin farms?

Almost 14,000 individual family-owned dairy farms are the foundation for Wisconsin's $20 billion dairy industry. They are also major recyclers of the raw materials they use, as nearly all of the grain, forage and supplements consumed by a cow to make milk are recycled by the farmer as fertilizer to make crops grow.

In addition to the daily application of manure directly to farm fields, there are 18 manure digesters at work on larger Wisconsin dairy farms with about that many under construction or in advanced planning.

The Statz Brothers dairy in Sun Prairie is nearing completion of a manure digester for their 1,500-cow main dairy. Norm-E-Lane Farm at Chili in Clark County is in the final phases of construction of a digester for their 1,500-cow dairy. Bach Farm in Dorchester as well as Grotegut Dairy and Mapleleaf Dairy, both in Cleveland, have just received U.S. Department of Agriculture Renewable Energy grants and loans to build digesters.

Those dairy farms with digesters are producing solids used for livestock bedding and fertilizer and methane gas that powers generators to make electricity for homes. The cost of a manure digester system is well in the six figure category, most of it borne by the dairy family making for lots of tough decisions.

What about manure digesters for small farms?

Major discussions have been held about building central manure digesters in Dane County. The central challenges are determining who will pay the high cost of building them and figuring how to get the manure from individual farms to the central digester.

There is one, in Chino, Calif., where a dozen dairies pay the electric utility to haul and process their manure. But this is an area where cows are housed in open corrals on dairies located side-by-side, a very short distance from the digester. Wisconsin dairy farms are located farther apart and the cost of hauling manure great distances (it's mostly water) is currently prohibitive.

* A bit over a year ago, Jim and Carol Kramer of rural Belleville, owners of Gypsum Recycling, Inc, were featured in this column.

The inventive farmer had created a business turning waste drywall into gypsum fertilizer and a patented manure odor control additive. The raw material, delivered to his farm by building contractors, is crushed, cleaned and stored for resale to farmers in a wide area.

Kramer and his recycling business, now 11 years old, is thriving and much has happened in the past year. The story generated inquiries from Australia (millions of tons of wall board in a landfill) to Seattle (how to build a system) to Madison (Waste Management, Inc., was interested in providing waste wall board) and many others who wanted to duplicate Kramer's system or to buy his gypsum. Several national magazines contacted Kramer for their own stories.

"I heard from people in 26 states," Kramer says. "And I'm working with folks in Washington, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia who are building sheet rock recycling systems.

Today, the building construction downturn has meant less sheet rock for recycling, but Kramer has an adequate supply for his customers. Waste Management, Inc., which signed a supply contract soon after the column appeared, is providing waste wall board from commercial construction sites. "I got the waste from the Capitol West and University Square projects in Madison," Kramer says, as well as a project at Beloit College.

It's rather amazing that Kramer has created a recycling business that serves the environment, contractors and farmers so well. And he did it with a lot of ingenuity, old farm equipment and without government assistance, committees, publicity or million-dollar budgets. He is a true entrepreneur-environmentalist!

* In January 2007 you read about Ken Risley and his Risley Pellet Solutions in Monticello. where he was processing wood waste into high-quality wood pellets for stoves. The plant is a former feed mill that Risley helped to build in 1975 and managed for the next 29 years.

In April 2006, Risley bought the vacant facility from Cargill, researched the renewable energy fuel pellet industry, made a business plan, modified the mill, hired some of his former employees and went into business recycling wood waste into a value-added product.

The business grew and was operating 24 hours a day, but things came to a screeching halt on the minus 18 degree night of February 6, 2007, when an explosion took the top of the building off and wrecked part of the warehouse. Investigators are still unsure of exactly what caused the explosion; there was no fire.

After 18 months of investigation by government agencies and engineering experts, and many days of serious thought, Risley has a new business plan, is rebuilding the facility and is about ready to go back in the biomass pellet business. It's notable that his wood pellet business continued to thrive with pellets made by another processor with his formula.

Risley's research tells him that there is much demand for high quality wood pellets for fuel. "It's a cheaper fuel than propane," he says. "People also enjoy seeing the flames in the stove and many folks like the idea of using a recycled product."

Risley is also looking at other biomass as possible raw material for his stove pellets: ethanol by-products and manure.

Far-fetched? Not if you know Risley.

"We are alive and well," he says. "But, I won't forget that cold night when my plant blew up."

Indeed, the next chapter in the life of this environmentalist with lots of dreams is about to be hatched. It will be interesting.

* What about the rain, will farmers have crops this year?

Many people ask this question. The answer is "Yes." And many will have good (maybe great) corn, soybeans and hay. It depends on where they live.

The upper two thirds of the state missed the heavy rains, and many farmers in the rain-drenched southern counties are seeing marked improvement in their crops.

"We are making second crop when it should be third crop time," says Wallace Behnke of Brooklyn. "Thus we'll lose one crop."

Like many farmers, he will lose some crop returns -- maybe 5 percent -- due to new ponds that drowned out some crops. "But, we'll be OK," he says with a wry grin.

Like all farmers, Behnke knows that nature does what it does and you live with it. And, like all farmers, he is squeezed by rising fuel and fertilizer costs. They are difficult to deal with, but you do!

John Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company. He can be reached at 222-0624 or e-mail jfodairy@chorus.net

John F. Oncken  —  7/24/2008 4:44 pm