Welcome to the Green Revolution
New technology is bringing farmers and municipalities closer together

John Stolp has a recipe for success. The ingredients? Turkey manure, sewage sludge, municipal waste and grass clippings with a dash of leaves. Sound scary? Not if your aim is ecologically responsible farming, earning a few dollars and bringing farmers and city residents closer together.

Working in collaboration with the Brant County Federation of Agriculture and Global Earth Products, Stolp has set up a revolutionary commercial composting site at his turkey farm outside Brantford. The site achieves its aim so successfully that it has farmers and municipal officials from across Ontario by looking at how Stolp's technology could be applied in their communities.

For Stolp, inspiration came in the late 1990’s. Already concerned that the 500 tonnes of manure his 12,000 turkeys were producing each year would overtake his small 25-acre farm, Stolp happened to meet Tom Smith, president of Global Earth Products, and learn of the company’s new manure composting technology, simply called “The Marvel”.

The now patented system is essentially a gigantic rectangular bin into which the manure is deposited along with common organic material such as leaves and garden waste, mixed according to a recipe. A moving tank-like track of spikes turns all the batch at the push of a button to keep it aerated, which reduces odours and increases uniformity.

After determining that the device was the answer to his dilemma, Stolp began working with the Brant County Federation of Agriculture as a sponsor, to secure the $145,000 needed to set up a pilot project at his farm. He discovered that in four years of tests conducted at nearby Ridgetown College, the best composting recipe uses mostly leaves because they have more carbon than other organic material. So he developed a plan to get help from the county to bring leaves from St. George-area residents when they groomed their yards in the fall. County council and staff were interested in his project too, because having leaves recycled at his site would divert them from the landfill.

“I started by talking with different community organizations, whether it was with the Boy Scouts or the Business Improvement Association, about a new way of doing things,” Stolp explains. “Instead of people bringing their leaves to the dump where they’re worried about landfills and so on, they could bring them to me for this project. After all, farmers have a waste product (manure) and communities have a waste product (leaves, sludge), let’s look at ways that we can work together to tackle the problem and do something better for the environment.”

For Stolp, the composting technology is also a means to an end. "It wasn't costing us to have manure hauled away, but we weren't getting anything for it," he says. Now, midway through the second year of composting, Stolp has found success selling his compost to four local golf courses. There's potential also in gardening centres and landscape contractors, but golf courses are the best bet for now, he says. "As an industry, they are facing a lot of pressure to follow nutrient management guidelines."

“The Ontario Trillium Foundation really thought out of the box on this grant because it was very innovative. We’re creating a harmony between the farmers, the livestock farmers and the nearby towns, all of whom have issues and concerns with waste,” Stolp said. “I’m pleased that the Ontario Trillium Foundation was able to determine that this project fit within their thinking about improving the environment and creating a better life for people in communities by helping address their waste problems.”

“Manure is manure, whether it’s here or somewhere else in Ontario. What we have done through the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation is relevant throughout the province and has the potential to help livestock farmers all over.”