The US$ 150-billion organic food industry has a major fertiliser problem that could hinder its growth. Massive livestock operations from Europe to North America have an even bigger problem: They’re producing catastrophic volumes of polluting waste they have nowhere to put, and it’s a damage-control cost they have to deal with. The solution to both will have to come from the tech world, and that crossroads of opportunity where farming, fertiliser, and low carbon energy could finally meet.
One answer very well may come from a Canadian company called EarthRenew, which is now preparing to showcase a new, patented technology that helps solve both of these problems, while generating its own electricity along the way for added revenue. The patented technology turns livestock waste – a critical environmental problem – into a new organic fertiliser that hopes to change the game for the flourishing organic farming industry.
That alone would be fantastic, but EarthRenew also plans to use the waste heat from its electricity production using natural gas to generate more electricity. That electricity is then used in its own fertiliser operations, with the surplus intended to be sold to the grid in an additional revenue stream. In fact, in January alone, EarthRenew raked in US$ 100,000 just selling natural gas fired power to Alberta’s grid.
That makes this a low-cost operation: They are producing their own electricity, and most of the raw material for their patented new fertiliser process is free for the picking because EarthRenew’s processing plant at Strathmore, in Calgary, sits on a 25,000-head cattle farm.
The coup de grace is this: EarthRenew’s tech solutions are all about modularity. That means they can provide livestock operators with their own scalable facilities to turn a massive and expensive manure problem into an electricity-generating cost-saver.
Solving a big manure problem
Livestock production continues to expand to meet the insatiable needs of the market, but the waste from these operations is also an environmental and logistics concern. Farmers from America to Europe have massive herds of cattle that produce huge volumes of manure which contains levels of phosphorus that end up rivaling the worst of our carbon emissions. That phosphorus also gets into our groundwater and pollutes our waterways extensively.
Some 80 per cent of these farms produce more cow waste than they can ever use. The farmers end up paying an estimated US$ 621+ million to get rid of it. It’s even led to the creation of what can only be described as an organised crime ring around cow dung. In 2019, the United States had 94.8 million head of cattle. A 1,000-pound cow produces an average of 80 pounds of manure every single day. That’s 7.6 billion pounds of toxic poo.
It’s a win-win situation for everyone from farmers drowning in poo, to communities with threatened waterways, to sustainable investors who want to see someone turning healthier food into money-making environmental victories. But there are even more victories to be had here:
The organic farming market is flourishing, with health and Natural Foods now becoming a mainstream lifestyle supported by mountains of evidence, as well as a much more climate-friendly way to farm. Market Research estimates that the global organic food and beverage market will grow from US$124.7 billion in 2017 to around $323.1 billion by the end of 2024, good for an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6% and more than 4x the total food sales growth of 3.6% predicted over the same timeframe.
The key to the patented technology
Filling the fertiliser gap is the key to solving multiple energy and farming problems, and EarthRenew’s patented, low-cost production process is being created to do just that. Located on a 25,000 head cattle feedlot, EarthRenew’s Strathmore Plant will produce heat-treated organic fertiliser that may end up being far superior to the composted manure full of hormones and antibiotics that are common in the market. The company’s thermal treatment is set not only to drive off the unwanted contaminants but will also be richer in the key nutrients as well as being a slow-release compound.
EarthRenew’s product is being built so that it only needs to be applied in a single pass alongside seed planting compared to three passes with the conventional organic fertilisers (passing, tilling, and seeding) leading to up to 80 per cent cost savings for the farmer.
Indeed, in October 2019, EarthRenew received key US and Canadian approvals for its organic fertiliser products. These important product certifications mean that in future the company will be permitted to sell its organic fertiliser products across those huge markets. The company’s predecessor invested about US$ 70 million in the product development.
