Waste to Resource-Generating a High Quality Soil Amendment from Animal Mortality and Butcher Waste

Issue: Livestock farms are faced with challenges of appropriate waste product disposal due to rising labor costs, limited access to rendering services and composting capacity. With butchering, disasters, floods, and fires, substantial volumes of waste must be managed in a short period of time. On the other hand, producers are bringing in fertility from outside the region at higher financial and ecological cost. 

The Cost of rendering pick up has quadrupled in the last few months if available at all; $170 to $700/week/ pickup in rural areas.  Burial laws are evolving in the northeast, where less burial is allowed to protect water quality and address the issues with karst topography in the North Country. VT already has limited bans on burial, and PA is working hard to implement composting of animal mortalities.

Animal mortality composting is not a new practice in the North Country, however there are uncertainties among farmers about the safety, microbial profile, and lab verified composition such as NPK, %organic matter, Carbon to Nitrogen ratios, %N, soluble salts, etc. that lead to hesitation in applying it to farm fields growing vegetable crops. In particular, significant concerns have arisen over the so-called forever chemicals or PFAs (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) that can contaminate soils for generations, rendering a contaminated farm inoperable and potentially liable.  

Farmers who are currently composting animal byproducts are asking for proof of process, end product safety and verified composition.  They are in need of technical support to improve their operations such as appropriate equipment, carbon sourcing and transportation, site preparation, bed management, and pile monitoring. 

Solution: Animal mortality composting - the processing of converting offal, butcher waste, animal mortalities, and other animal byproducts to a high quality soil amendment - provides numerous benefits and opportunities for addressing farm waste challenges and supports keeping nutrients local. And, strong evidence exists to support the feasibility of recycling excess nutrients safely on-farm (see citation list). 

When processing clean, high nutrient feedstock (wood chips, animal bedding, and meat, spent feed and manure), under appropriate conditions, what was once a costly and dangerous waste can be converted to a beneficial product. High quality thermophilic compost with microbial diversity increases plant vitality, decreases weed pressure, reduces pathogens, as well as erosion and nutrient loading in watersheds and non-point source run-off. Farmers applying compost to their soils can decrease the need for costly and harmful chemical inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers. Compost use increases the capacity of soil to retain water, reducing the need for irrigation, while also improving water quality.

Farms generating static pile compost onsite have the potential to cut labor and fertility costs, and/or generate income through a locally produced commodity. Community health and safety can be protected through reduced need for the aforementioned chemical additives.  

Our local food system, and farm resilience, will be strengthened by closing the loop from waste to fertility and keeping that resource geographically close. The model can be replicated across regions with small farms.

In consultation with technical consultants, this project will spend three years fine tuning the compost recipe, sourcing carbon (wood chips and shavings), preparing the site, upgrading equipment (tractor bucket, eg), and testing compost to prove that a highest quality, appropriate, feasible and safest compost standard can be achieved within 6-9 months from slaughter/death. 

This process will result in compost that is a known product, as well as a body of knowledge to be shared with animal mortality composters to optimize their respective systems.