While it’s not always easy to make money in farming, Brad Whitsel, president of Integrity Ag Systems, appears to have found a way to make a fortune in the agricultural commodity commonly known as “cow pies.”
He points out that 1,000 cows on a large dairy farm create a waste stream equal to the stream of comparable waste from 20,000 people. While municipal sewage systems tend to keep that latter pollution under control, most of the former is stored in ponds, spread over fields, or hauled away at substantial costs to the farmer.
Since 2001, his company has been building systems that help farmers deal with a leading source of water contamination in the country– and one that’s increasingly a focus of state and federal regulations. Concentrating on the dairy swine farm market of mid-Atlantic and New England states, but with clients as far away as South Dakota, Integrity Ag Systems has installed more than 114 agricultural waste control systems, providing solutions that not only control waste but also provide a payback on the investment within two to five years through a reduction of costs.
At the heart of the system is a composting and sequestration process that captures undigested nutrient materials that form the bulk of manure and which can be reused as “green sawdust”–or sold–when separated from the liquid, sterilized and dried. The liquid itself can be more readily used as a field fertilizer. A fluidized-bed anaerobic digester also captures methane that can be used the supply “all of the energy on the farm,” Whitsel says.
The recycling is where the economies come to the farmer. “A farmer may be spending $60,000 a year on sawdust alone,” Whitsel says. When the waste is treated, the cows can create it for free, as much of the undigested cellulose is captured from the cud.
This year Integrity AG Systems, which received a $125,000 award last month from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northern and Central Pennsylvania, is introducing a line of animal health products-and seeking to hire sales personnel and a procurement manager to create a dealer network.
Source: Integrity AG Systems, Brad Whitsel
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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