Processes that conserve water and reduce waste can also help livestock farmers keep more money in their pockets, says a swine producer from Bentley.
Kingdom Farms owner Will Kingma estimates that, when it all washes out, he can save $20 per pig from a combination of processes he is testing to recapture value from liquid manure.
With financial support from the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency, Kingma, 38, has installed a plant that extracts and cleans some of the water from liquid manure.
“It’s not optimized yet, but it is up and running,” said Kingma.
“We’re hoping to separate 70 per cent of the water out of the manure and it’s running at 60 per cent. We were hoping that it would run at about 35 gallons per minute and it’s running at 26 to 30.”
Water from the plant has been tested only once so far. It wasn’t quite at potable standards, but the plant is supposed to be capable of producing water that is fit for human consumption, said Kingma.
For now, the recycled water is pumped into the farm’s fresh-water dugout for watering pigs and washing barns.
Kingma plans to use the water in other processes on his farm, including ethanol production, which he also has planned as part of the operation.
“It’s all part of a cycle,” said Kingma.
Included in the cycle is construction of a biodigester that will process livestock manure and other waste into a fuel that can then be used to generate electricity.
Site work and engineering studies have been completed for the biodigester. Kingma is awaiting environmental permits, which he anticipates will take a number of months.
He hopes to start construction in another year on the biodigester.
Part of the savings from the waste treatment plant comes through reducing the costs of hauling liquid manure for fertilizing crops and pastures.
Kingma currently disposes of liquid manure by selling it to farmers in his region. It’s still a part of his production costs, because the income does not cover the expense of hauling the product. With the water plant running, he is offering a more concentrated product that will not fill as many loads.
“The trucking cost is reduced by whatever amount of water you pull out. There’s more nutrient per gallon. It’s not watered down. It’s still flowable. You can spread it or inject it,” said Kingma.
That savings amounts to $8 per pig, he said. Combining that with the other processes brings the potential savings to $20.
Designing and installation of the manure treatment plant cost just under $1 million, of which the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency contributed $233,000, said Irene Wenger, research project manager for the agency, an arm of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development.
The project is a good fit with ALMA’s mission, which is to help livestock producers and industry organizations find ways to improve their profitability, said Wenger.
“We try our best to see where particular projects fit. In this case, it’s under our on-farm technology adoption program. The fit for this particular project was this opportunity for him to demonstrate this technology and for other producers to adopt it,” she said.
“In the pork industry, there is a lot of liquid pit systems. What we’re funding is transforming the liquid pig manure from the pits into potable water that can then be reused for something. In Will’s case, it would be for his ethanol facility.”
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com
