Dairy Methane Digesters

Dairy Methane Digesters

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Dairies provide us with a whole lot more than just milk. In yesterday’s report, we shared how advances in genetics are enabling dairy farmers to also produce high quality beef. But they’re also starting to generate fuel as well. Greg Bethard is the CEO of High Plains Ponderosa Dairy.

Bethard… “We are building a methane digester right now with Shell Oil as our partner in that. And that's a really exciting project. So we're gonna produce renewable natural gas. So basically all of our cow manure will go through the digester and will produce methane and take that methane off and clean it, scrub it and compress it and put it in the pipeline.”

Bethard said not only does this create a new revenue stream, but it also lowers the dairy’s carbon footprint.

Bethard… “Consumers that are buying food are showing a preference of buying food that's produced in a more carbon friendly manner. If our consumers want food produced in a certain way, and if we can do it, I think it'd be silly for us to not give our consumers what they want as long as we can do it and do it profitably. So we are trying to find that spot where we're choosing to lower our carbon footprint and improve our environmental impact in a way that also is profitable for the business and makes sense and lowers our cost or increases our revenue.”

The digester project is a great example of increasing revenue in a more environmentally sustainable way.

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