What I saw was quite simply, recycling at its best. The digester uses manure to create electricity, which the farm can sell back to the grid. But that’s not all. The process also generates liquid fertilizer and a solid material that can be used as bedding for the dairy cows. Quite literally, nothing goes to waste. I would love to see more of this technology used in Georgia.

When a business such as ours makes an investment of this size the consensus from our family was to go with the proven technology. For us that meant DVO.

DVO, a great company to work with. The experience of building a digester is stressful for a dairyman. However DVO made it a pleasant and fun journey. They have a team of people to work with and understand the fundamentals of dairyfarming. They took care of all details from writing grants to helping with design and installing the last manure pump. They have my philosophy of keeping things as simple as possible on the farm. However the most important part of their company are the people. Simply a great group to work with.

My dream and Sue’s dream — and people look at me like I’m crazy — is to have a zero-carbon-footprint dairy. And I believe we can get there.

My customers are paying for the digested liquid from Holsum’s digester, and fighting over the limited supply – because crop yields are so much better where they spread the digested liquid.

What is really amazing is what you don’t see or actually, smell. Spending the better part of the past two and a half years down here, I thought that I had just grown accustomed to it. But that’s not it. The odor now is virtually gone.

Manure digestion brings great synergies to the table for crops, the environment and a farm’s balance sheets.

With the bedding situation out there-sawdust and shavings are hard to come by…I’m more or less doing it to get the bedding.