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["Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>]

These guys were on that t.v. program Dirty Jobs.  Quite interesting!

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bobf" <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>

> The last sentence of the article from the farmer : “It’s a strange world 
> when poop is more valuable than milk.”
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Town Green
>
>
> From Tons of Manure, a Growth Industry
>
> Wendy Carlson for The New York Times
>
> THE PRODUCERS Matt Freund, above, and his brother turned manure at their 
> farm into flowerpots.
>
> GERRI HIRSHEY
>
> Published: February 26, 2009
>
> IN almost-spring, as itchy gardeners drag out grow lights and 
> seed-starting flats, it seems a fitting moment to trace the germ of a new 
> and very green gardening idea. It first took root beside a reeking, 
> unspeakable lagoon in the northwest corner of Connecticut and is 
> blossoming sweetly nationwide. Kindly summon a gardener’s tolerance for 
> earthy subject matter as this gritty tale unfolds:
>
> More than a decade ago — she thinks it was in 1998 — Jane Slupecki, a 
> marketing representative for the Connecticut Department of Agriculture, 
> took a group of Litchfield County dairy farmers to a brainstorming dinner 
> at a lovely lakeside inn there. Her agency had a small grant to try to 
> find possible solutions to a big, stinky problem.
>
> “Cow manure,” Ms. Slupecki recalls. “Endless tons of it. We were concerned 
> about how farmers returned manure nutrients to their fields, and how we 
> could prevent runoff of excess nitrogen and phosphorus into watersheds.” 
> Since farms in riparian areas were of particular concern, most of the 
> dairymen invited to dinner were grazing cows near the Blackberry River, 
> which in turn feeds the mighty Housatonic. Their hostess remembers it as 
> “just a lovely dinner,” but we will spare the reader the technical points 
> of the conversation.
>
> “Cow poop is cow poop,” admits Ms. Slupecki, who was feeling some 
> frustration at the paucity of workable suggestions by the time they 
> reached dessert and coffee. Half in jest, she blurted, “Can’t you guys do 
> something with this stuff — make a flowerpot or something?”
>
> Those were fateful words for brothers Ben and Matthew Freund, 
> second-generation dairy farmers who at the time maintained a herd of 225 
> Holsteins in East Canaan. Each cow produces 120 pounds of manure daily. 
> Why not grow flowers and tomatoes from cow flops? It took eight years’ 
> development, a $72,000 federal grant secured through Connecticut’s 
> Agricultural Businesses Cluster, and countless grim experiments. Now their 
> manure-based CowPots — biodegradable seed-starting containers — are being 
> made on the farm and sold to commercial and backyard growers who prefer 
> their advantages over plastic pots.
>
> Molded of dried, deodorized manure fibers, CowPots hold water well, last 
> for months in a greenhouse and can then be planted directly into the 
> ground, sparing the seedling transplant shock and letting tender new roots 
> penetrate easily. As the pots decompose, they continue to fertilize the 
> plant and attract beneficial worms.
>
> According to Matthew Freund, CowPots are the natural evolution of the 
> family’s farming philosophy. Their father, Eugene, who died in late 2008, 
> was a graduate of Cornell University’s veterinary school and had been 
> committed to sound environmental practices since beginning dairy farming 
> in 1949. At the time of Ms. Slupecki’s dinner, the Freunds already had a 
> methane digester to process manure, built in part with a government grant. 
> Beginning in 1997, theirs has been one of the rare farms in the United 
> States continually extracting methane gas from cow manure in a digester. 
> The methane can power a generator to save electricity costs, and the 
> digester also removes the most pungent odors.
>
> “With a small herd like we have now, 250 cows, there’s not a lot of 
> monetary payback from it,” Mr. Freund says. “But it heats our house, gives 
> us hot water and lets us heat the manure, making it easier to pump.” While 
> the digester does not reduce the nutrient load, it makes the waste easier 
> to manage in accordance with requirements of the 1972 Clean Water Act. 
> Shipping off the solids as CowPots certainly helps. “We’re in compliance,” 
> Mr. Freund says. “But a lot of guys are in trouble.”
>
> The cows’ byproduct is bulldozed daily, transported and forced through a 
> chamber with an auger that separates solids and liquids. “The digester 
> tank is 100 degrees, the same temperature as a cow’s stomach,” Mr. Freund 
> says.
>
> The liquid fertilizer is stored in an 800,000 gallon holding pond for use 
> on the fields. Taking Ms. Slupecki’s suggestion to heart, Mr. Freund 
> addressed the mountains of fibrous, grainy-smelling solids. His early 
> experiments — shaping pots of dried manure and Elmer’s Glue, then baking 
> them in his wife Theresa’s toaster oven — were hardly marriage-enhancing. 
> “O.K., she couldn’t use the oven anymore. But she was all for it. She’s a 
> farm girl herself. We’re conservative and cheap, and make do with what we 
> have.”
>
> The first marketable CowPots were produced by hand in December 2007 for 
> the 2008 growing season. Now the process is mechanized, the patent is 
> pending and the Freunds have offloaded what Mr. Freund calls “the really 
> hard jobs” — marketing and distribution — to the Liquid Fence Company, 
> makers of all-natural animal and insect repellents.
>
> The Freunds have green dreams far beyond CowPots, though most are too 
> proprietary to divulge. Just one? “Think about golf tees made of composted 
> manure that fertilize greens when discarded.” With other local dairymen, 
> they are looking into the feasibility of a cooperative venture to combine 
> the methane gas produced by 2,500 cows on three farms to contribute to the 
> power grid. “By our calculations, we could deliver three megawatts and 
> light the town of Canaan,” Mr. Freund says. “It would be a lot of fun.”
>
> He only hopes that he and his neighboring farmers can last in their 
> primary business. Nationwide, dairy farmers are struggling as never 
> before. As exports have plunged and financially ailing Americans buy less 
> milk, prices set by the commodities market have been in free fall. 
> Already, herds are being auctioned off throughout the country.
>
> Last June, milk was selling for nearly $20 a hundredweight. Mr. Freund 
> expects that to drop to $12 by next year — far less than farmers’ expenses 
> to bring milk to market. He says that the Agriculture Department’s 
> cost-of-production calculations average $26 per hundredweight in New 
> England states. Though he is pleased with the modest success of his 
> value-added product, he muses, “It’s a strange world when poop is more 
> valuable than milk.”
>
> E-mail: conn AT nytimes.com
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/nyregion/connecticut/0301colct.html?em
>
>
>
>
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