What provides the power at this Cecil County farm? The cows

The farm that Alice and Caleb Crothers inherited in 2015 was, like many dairy farms nationwide, struggling — but now, cow manure is helping to keep it going.

Last fall, the Crothers started up a system — made up of a 60-foot-wide, 14-foot-deep container and special bacteria — that captures fumes from cow poop to generate electricity.

That container, called a digester, produces enough energy to power their entire farm; a solution rare in Maryland and much of the U.S., but not so rare in California.

Their decision became one that not only helped Long Green Farms’ finances but made their farm one of only two in Maryland that operate anaerobic dairy digesters, systems that capture the methane released from their cows’ manure. Those digesters are the dairy-farm version of the system the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission’s Piscataway Bioenergy Project uses to reclaim natural gas from human waste.

The addition of those machines was financially crucial because in the dairy business, farmers can’t control their income, Alice Crothers said. That’s because dairy prices vary widely based on market conditions.

“So, I have to control my expenses,” she said. “As warm and fuzzy as it sounds to talk about a methane digester, the reality of it is, we pursued this to eliminate the electric expenses.”

This approach, often an expensive one, had to make good business sense – “or there’s no point for us to consider it,” she said.

The move also made sense for the environment, as it made productive use of animal waste tied to climate change.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘What is good for my business?’ Not just, ‘What is good for the environment?’” Crothers said about their farm. “All of the decisions we’ve made have financially benefited our farm or have been a net neutral.”

Cows as Polluters 

In switching how they run their farm, the Crothers addressed a problem that cows create all across the globe: methane emissions.

Within the last 10 years, American dairy consumption has steadily increased, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The rise in consumption demands more cows to produce milk, which means more manure.

That manure is usually stored in large basins called lagoons, where it produces methane due to a lack of oxygen, said Stephanie Lansing, a researcher in waste energy at the University of Maryland.

Without proper management, the methane dissipates into the atmosphere.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, dairy farms account for only 2% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — mostly methane and nitrous oxide — while passenger cars and lighter trucks alone produce around 18%. 

However, methane alone is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide at heating the planet, according to the EPA.

“It’s not like these lagoons are lighting on fire, but methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, so it has the ability to warm the planet when it’s there,” Lansing said. 

From Manure to Energy

What dairy farms can do is cover these lagoons and capture the methane to reuse through a process called anaerobic digestion.

Inside a container called the digester, naturally occurring microbes break down waste material and produce gas. The gas, mostly made of methane, can be processed and then used to heat homes, fuel trucks and power neighborhoods.

“As soon as we use that methane, it’s no longer going into the atmosphere,” Lansing said.

It’s an attractive solution for environmentalists. Yet, only a tiny fraction of the nation’s 24,000 dairy farms use them, and they’re almost all in California.

California has passed legislation calling for a 40% reduction in emissions from the dairy and livestock sectors by 2030, said Michael Boccadoro, the executive director of Dairy Cares, a sustainable dairy nonprofit in California.

“Digesters have become one very important tool for us to accomplish that,” he said.

Earlier this year, the organization announced the state’s dairy sector reached the annual reduction of 5 million metric tons of methane in dairy farms statewide.

As of the beginning of this year, 168 farms in California have operating digesters, with 75 more in development.

The state’s approach involves an initiative called the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which incentivizes dairy farmers to capture methane using digesters and use the resulting gas to fuel the transportation sector, specifically heavy-duty trucks and buses.

“Without a doubt, this is where it makes the most economic sense. And it makes the most environmental sense, too,” Boccadoro said. “The air-quality benefits are tremendous for a state like California, where we have bad air quality.”

California’s lesson for other states hoping to reach similar methane reduction goals is to incentivize their farmers instead of regulating them, he added.

“They’ve got to be economic to make them work. Otherwise, they won’t stay in operation,” Boccadoro said.

A Limited Solution

For now, at least, the solution the Crothers embraced is a rare one in Maryland’s dairy country. 

Asked how many of the state’s roughly 300 dairy farms installed digesters, Lansing held up two fingers. The two farms are Kilby Farms and Long Green Farms, both in Cecil County, Maryland.

“It’s the shortsightedness of Maryland’s cost-share program,” said Jeff Semler, a food and animal science researcher at the University of Maryland’s Western Maryland Research and Education Center.

The reason why Maryland legislators are behind on this technology, he said, is that it’s expensive.

“They would rather fund the cheaper practices. In their minds, more bang for their buck,” Semler said. 

The Maryland Agricultural Water Quality Cost-Share Program offers farmers grants that cover up to 100% of the costs to develop environmentally friendly measures on their farms, according to the program’s website. But dairy digesters are ineligible for the grant program, and Semler said that’s a mistake.

“It would incentivize the practice, which would certainly help,” Semler said.

Tyler Hough, director of government relations for the Maryland Farm Bureau, said the biggest barrier to installing to digesters is the high costs.

“Digesters require significant investment, and financing options can be limited,” he said.

Hough said the bureau should continue pushing for cost-share support in Annapolis and make sure the public and lawmakers understand how digesters support sustainability and energy independence.

Making the Call

Crothers and her husband, Caleb Crothers, said the conversation about sustainable practices for their farm began the year they moved in because they knew it could potentially reduce expenses and help their business.

It did just that. The methane digester at Long Green Farms now powers the entire farm, which uses a significant amount of electricity.

“[Take] a milking parlor, that cooling tank in there has to stay on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” Alice Crothers said. “In the summer, we have fans on all of our cows to keep them from overheating. There are lights in the barns. Even the silos that we use require electricity.”

Crothers said for other dairy farms in the state aiming to be more sustainable, the first thing they should do is talk to the staff at their local soil conservation district.

“They intimately know what programs they have available,” she said. “They introduced us to a lot of people and kind of helped us get the ball rolling.”

However, Crothers said when it comes to making decisions that benefit the farm both environmentally and financially, it’s up to the business owners themselves.

“At the end of the day, it’s a business,” she said. “They can tell you what programs are available and what might be a good fit for your farm, but you have to decide if it’s going to help you.”