Greater efficiency
A pioneering pig farm in North Carolina that has led the way in its industry for embracing renewable technologies, has reported a 10% increase in its biogas yields by investing in two new chopper pumps made by Landia.
Soon after Butler Farms opened just over 25 years ago, the owner quickly wanted to reduce its impact on the environment, culminating in the development of its own pig-manure-powered biogas operation in 2011.
As a contract grower that takes 20,000 pigs per year from their arrival weight of around 40 lbs to their departure size of about 290 lbs, Butler Farms of Lillington, just south of Raleigh, has enough manure to warrant a one-million-gallon storage lagoon turned anaerobic digester (60 ft by 180 ft by 18 ft deep) for the (up to) 10,000 gallons of manure that are produced every day.
‘Do whatever we could to lessen our impact’
“We may have started out in 1994 as a simple generic contract grower,” said owner Tom Butler, “but starting with improvements through the EPA’s Clean Water Act, we wanted to do whatever we could to lessen our impact on the environment and our community.”
Soon after Butler Farms opened just over 25 years ago, the owner quickly wanted to reduce its impact on the environment, culminating in the development of its own pig-manure-powered biogas operation in 2011.
As a contract grower that takes 20,000 pigs per year from their arrival weight of around 40 lbs to their departure size of about 290 lbs, Butler Farms of Lillington, just south of Raleigh, has enough manure to warrant a one-million-gallon storage lagoon turned anaerobic digester (60 ft by 180 ft by 18 ft deep) for the (up to) 10,000 gallons of manure that are produced every day.
‘Do whatever we could to lessen our impact’
“We may have started out in 1994 as a simple generic contract grower,” said owner Tom Butler, “but starting with improvements through the EPA’s Clean Water Act, we wanted to do whatever we could to lessen our impact on the environment and our community.”
