As regular readers will know, I applaud all those who, when faced with adversity fight their way out of it and score a success.
A few days ago I wrote about an old (and long retired) bank manager who knew everything about the value of farmland, and received some interesting comments from Anonymous in New Zealand explaining that such earned knowledge was still in demand there.
I have since come across another more modern success story which I also applaud and it concerns the little guys in the photograph – actually 4,000 of them and it is they who are responsible for the 12,000 tonnes mentioned above. This figure doesn’t refer to their weight but rather the weight of their “end-products” (to be polite).
It seems that the farmer who owns these little beauties has seen, over the past 15 years, the price paid for them by supermarkets remain at the same level. Faced with the problem of his income sliding into oblivion he decided to review his operations. He finally came up with the idea of using their “poo” to create electricity. He has built a $1 million methane gas plant which drives a $200,000 turbine which produces electricity – 2.2 million kilowatt hours, enough to power 175 houses. The electricity generated brings him in an income of $300,000 per year on top of which he has reduced his farm bills by $30,000 each year plus $60,000 a year by not having to buy fertiliser. He has also reduced his carbon footprint by some 10,000 tonnes (9,000 transatlantic flights). As he points out “we are the custodians (guardians) of the land and need to leave it in better condition than we found it”.
If there is one thing I like, it’s success – and here is a super example.
Until next time (but no end-products),
Peripatetic Scribe
Thanks for this, P.S. This will be extremely useful down here as oil prices (and therefore electricity)continue to rise. Many down here have been looking for a model and it would seem that this might be what we want. Fantastic savings and even if we scale down the approach to suit our circumstances, what a great way of getting rid of "waste"! And it's true - food prices to farmers are static, so anything that increases income is welcome.
ReplyDeleteHere in Germany this sort of approach has been used by many farmers. It's good to see more "green" operations are spreading around. Excellent. Danke!
ReplyDeleteWelcome, Anonymous in Germany. I am pleased to see this is also happening in your country. It would be interesting to know the prices farmer get for their electricity - do you know what the feed-in tariffs are? P.S.
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous in NZ - anything that helps the farming community to continue and expand is great news. You have sheep as the prime "end-product" and I guess they would be more than willing to help!!! P.S.
ReplyDeleteFantastic! I wish Croatians were aware of such possibilities as well!
ReplyDeleteLucana
HI, Lucana. One of the reasons for this piece was to raise awareness of what CAN be achieved. If it is not happening where you are, I can only guess that either a) nobody cares or b) the legislation is of such poor quality (if any) that nobody can move in this direction. P.S.
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