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Nebraska pork farm honored for environmental efforts
A Nebraska pork producer is being recognized for his efforts to reduce his farm’s environmental footprint.
Danny Kluthe of Bacon Hill Farm at Dodge is one of four pork farms nationwide to receive the 2013 Pork Industry Environmental Stewards award sponsored by the Pork Checkoff.
Kluthe has an anaerobic manure digester on his farm. It captures methane gas and turns it into electricity, which is sold to Nebraska Public Power District. And a year ago, Kluthe explains, he started compressing the methane and storing it in compressed natural gas tanks.
“And now I’m running 80 percent methane and 20 percent diesel in my ¾ ton Duramax Chevy diesel—and I’m running 90 percent methane and 10 percent diesel in the tractors,” Kluthe says.
Another big benefit to the manure digester, Kluthe says, is odor reduction.
“All of the manure that goes through this anaerobic digester manure processing system come out odorless,” he says. “So, yeah, we still have the friendly odor of livestock—can’t get away from that—but we got rid of that hostile odor that comes from the lagoons.”
Kluthe’s motivation? For one thing, his hog operation is right across the road from a country church which still serves about 45 families. “So it was pretty important to me to make livestock neighbor-friendly,” he says.
Other pork farms receiving the environmental award are Russell Brothers LLC, Monticello, Iowa; Krikke Pork, Greenwich, Ohio; and Blue Mountain Farms, Milford, Utah.
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