MBS News Items

At the back of this beef farm, wisps of steam rise from rounded rows of compost as the age-old process of decay lays the groundwork for new life — soil.

But this isn’t a typical backyard compost heap. Inside these mounds of straw and cattle manure is a carefully monitored and tightly controlled oven of sorts, that slow cooks a prolific topsoil with all organic ingredients.

Father-son beef farmers Dale and Cliff Pfundstein have hopped on the early wave of what many soil conservationists and farm economists predict will be the future of commercial agriculture – a shift away from industrial chemicals toward environmentally conscious and sustainable practices.

“What it comes down to is that you’re taking raw manure that’s not environmentally friendly, and turning it into an all-natural product that’s better than any fertilizer,” Dale Pfundstein said.

The rows take about 10 to 12 weeks for the stinking mix to completely convert into a near-odorless loam loaded with nutrients, and the Pfundsteins’s first compost harvest is just a few days from ready.

They plan to use it on their own fields and sell what they don’t to farmers looking to escape skyrocketing input costs.
It started when the Pfundsteins more than doubled the number of livestock on their farm. The Illinois EPA swept in with word that runoff from the cattle house contained too many pollutants and could result in hefty fines if not mitigated. “We had a choice: Either pay for these fees and damage the water quality or set this up and start making money,” Dale Pfudstein said. “Not much of a choice.”

Spurred by government policies that limit environmental impact, the economics of farming have more producers embracing greener, sustainable growing techniques. Worldwide averages for fertilizer prices have more than tripled during this decade, and crop farmers are increasingly looking for alternatives, according to the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development.

The Pfundsteins invested about $90,000 for equipment and training on how to develop the value-added product, and interest in the compost has been so high they believe the loan will be paid in anywhere from 2 to 5 years.
Proponents of the manure-based compost say not only is the compost cheaper than commercial fertilizer, it’s also better because toxic chemicals like herbicides and pesticides break down during the high-heat process. “What you’re spreading on your field is just like organic fertilizer,” Cliff Pfundstein said.

While the interest in sustainable agriculture may be growing, government policy and business incentives have been slow to keep pace, experts said. Dave Dornbusch, coordinator of the Blackhawk Hills Resource Conservation and Development District, said state and federal budget cuts threaten to stymie sustainable programs and education for farmers looking to clean up the way they operate.

“Our biggest concern now is the cutbacks in staffing for all natural resource divisions. They are the ones that set the conservation agenda for the county. The Soil and Water Conservation is facing 45-percent cuts,” Dornbusch said. Mitigating the impact of livestock waste has become a national issue not only for water quality around the corner, but also to head off what could become an environmental disaster downstream.

For nearly 20 years, scientists have documented large-scale die-off of wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico around the mouth of the Mississippi River. Called hypoxia, all of the field runoff between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains makes its way into the Mississippi River Watershed and eventually into the Gulf.

Dave Harrison, resource conservationist for the Whiteside County Soil and Water District, said the Gulf hypoxia falls among the most important environmental issues facing the United States, and contends it’s one regional farmers can take hold of.
Commercial agriculture “is really at that crossroads of is it going to survive or not,” Harrison said. “And you need conservation to keep the land healthy.”

Government policy must crack down on water quality while encouraging alternatives like those sold by Midwest Bio-Systems in rural Tampico, Harrison said.

Founder and president of MBS, Edwin Blosser, 44, and his wife Karla Blosser, 43, started manufacturing equipment to cultivate the high-grade compost in 1993, and they’ve grown to 30 employees with more on the way. “Our whole mission is to have better conservation of soils and have better food as a result,” Edwin Blosser said. “We’re looking at rising medical concerns and terminal illness and we believe it’s a result of food. We’re in a tidal wave of consumers wanting this technology.”

A former soil conservationist and farm consultant, Blosser said he noticed farmers adding more and more fertilizer every year to keep their land viable. “We had one mission: How to manage soils to avoid the situation of being farmed out,” he said. “We want to stop that vicious cycle of having to add increasing amounts of fertilizer that gets into the water and costs farmers money.”