TFB kicks off annual convention, receives Philip Morris grant

December 6, 2001 -- In a press conference on Sunday, Dec. 2, Texas Farm Bureau President Donald Patman announced that Phillip Morris Companies Inc. was providing a $50,000 grant to help solve the water quality issues in the Bosque River Basin.

The Texas Farm Bureau was holding its annual convention this week, Dec. 2-5, at the Waco Convention Center.

According to Patman the grant will support a study that will help determine the size and scope of the technology needed to handle the waste generated by dairy farms in the North Bosque watershed. The goal is to develop a process that will minimize the impact of dairy cattle waste on the local water supply.

"From this study we hope to establish the first demonstration project to remove or treat all of the manure solids and liquids from the possibility of non-point runoff," said Patman. "We applaud Philip Morris for their commitment to American agriculture and this grant will go a long way in helping maintain a viable Central Texas dairy industry."

The funding from Philip Morris will be used to construct an on-farm anaerobic digester in Erath County. The digester will use dairy manure to generate electricity.

Anaerobic digestion technology has been in existence for over 50 years and has proven to be a successful way to treat sewage and industrial waste. The technology converts manure into electricity by storing manure in a sealed, oxygen-free environment. Bacteria then decomposes the waste and produces compost and methane gas. The methane gas can then be used to power an electrical generator.

According to information published by the Farm Bureau, a manure digester system on an 1,800-cow dairy farm has the potential to generate enough electricity to power almost 250 homes.

Russell Laird, agriculture representative from the Phillip Morris Companies, stated that the Shared Solutions grant was Phillip Morris' way of "doing our part to help with the Lake Waco issue."

"Phillip Morris family of companies is one of the largest purchasers of agricultural commodities in the United States," said Laird. "Every product that we produce starts on a farm or ranch somewhere. The future of agriculture and the future of our company go hand in hand."

Laird went on to discuss the Shared Solutions program, stating that through the program Phillip Morris can collaborate with the agricultural community to find innovative and effect ways to balance the need for agricultural commodities with the need to protect our environment.

"With this grant we are not going to come in and pretend that we have all the answers to rectify this issue. This is a complex, technical issue with a lot of history and we would like to be a part of the solution," said Laird. "We are under no illusions that by writing a check this issue will be solved. It is going to take cooperation between a diverse group of people."

According to Farm Bureau statistics, Erath County is the milk production center of Texas, generating $200 million annually. A total of 104 million pounds of milk are produced each year by close to 44,000 dairy cows.

Ned Meister of the Texas Farm Bureau estimates that the manure digester project should be up and running sometime in late 2002. "This system will be on site; on a dairy. It will involve methane generators and water clarifiers and a drum digester," he stated. "By doing it that way we can keep all of the waste together and not have to spread this on land."

According to Meister the water clarifying system will allow a farmer to filter out the phosphorous from the water. "This will allow that water to be reusable within the system," he said.

Another aspect of the system will be composting. "One thing good about the compost system we are looking at is we are talking about three days through a drum digester and 21-28 days of curing until the compost reaches optimum condition," said Meister.

The press conference served as a kickoff for the Farm Bureau's annual convention. According to Patman they are expecting over 1,000 farmers, ranchers, voting delegates and other participants this year. Some of the topics to be discussed at the convention include property taxes for public school funding and the Farm Bill.