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Cow Manure is Not Waste! Here I go again, talking about cow manure! Manure is not something I desire to discuss as often as I do, but when you’re in the agricultural industry in Jefferson County, invariably it is a topic that will bubble up frequently. On October 9, I had the good fortune to help with the open house for the Sheland Farms Resource Recovery Facility (RRF). The RRF is a new, state of the art facility that allows the 550 cow dairy farm to recover as much value as possible from the manure produced by their cows. Which brings me to the point I want to make, manure is not waste! Everyone knows that manure is produced by dairy cows and has to be managed properly to minimize impacts on our environment. Dairy Farms in New York are among the most highly regulated in the United States according to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. However, because it can have an environmental impact does not make it waste. Waste is a product that has no or little value. Cow manure on a dairy farm is high in value and for some, such as Sheland Farms in the Town of Ellisburg in Jefferson County, manure is the source of Cow Power! Yes, Cow Power. Cow Power is the generation of electricity from the methane gas produced by storing manure in a large vessel. The gas rises to the top, it is run through a scrubber to clean out the impurities, bottled and then fed into a large 125 kilowatt engine set that burns the methane to create electricity. This Cow Power allows the farm to generate enough electricity to meet its needs and on good days, possibly put some cow power electricity on the grid. Just think, next time you turn on a light, especially if you live or work in southern Jefferson County, you might be benefiting from the 550 cows on Sheland Farms! Besides the Cow Power, the manure is run through a separator where the water is squeezed out of the manure. The solids then go into a huge rotary drum composter where in 22 hours, the solids are turned into some of the best compost you’ll find. Sheland Farms doesn’t use the compost to plant a garden, they use the compost as bedding for their cows to sleep comfortably at night. This saves Sheland Farms over $45,000 a year in bedding costs for the cows, replacing the paper bedding they used before. But we shouldn’t forget that every other dairy in Jefferson County does not have an RRF to fully capture the value of manure. We find that manure is still a valuable resource. As the cost of petroleum products rises, so does the cost of commercially produced fertilizer. Cow manure has great value as a fertilizer with important quantities of nitrogen, phosphorous, and other nutrients that are required for producing the feed needed by the cows to make lots of milk. So once again, we see that manure is not waste, it has high value on our farms, and now even helps feed a few of us some Cow Power! You go girls.
- Jay M. Matteson, Jefferson County Agricultural Coordinator
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