Anaerobic Digestion at Lawnhurst Farms

Abstract

Lawnhurst Farms, (Stanly, NY) a family farm for the past three generations, since 1925, is owned and operated by Mr. Don Jensen with his son and daughter, Donny and Kelley. Lawnhurst employs about 30 employees to work on the farm. The farm has about 1300 dairy cattle. The farm raises crops such as corn, alfalfa and beans on 2,300 acres of land for on-farm use. Lawnhurst began expanding in 1992, expanding from a 180-cow herd to about 300 head. They then expanded again in 2002, building a freestall barn and a parlor The Jensen’s first started looking at anaerobic digestion in 2007. After a few year of investigation, they decided to travel to Europe in 2010; where the Jensen’s connected with Envitec Biogas. The company was very interested in expanding into the U.S. however, was not able to at that time. After receiving a grant from NYSERDA, as well as other grants and funding, and after two years of dealings and planning between Lawnhurst and Envitec, construction began in June of 2012. A diagram of the digester is shown in figure 1. Envitec biogas also provided Lawnhurst with operational training. Donny spent four months in Germany touring other biogas plants, as well as receiving hands on training to prepare him to oversee the digester at Lawnhurst.