3 days Ago
Dr. Eric Behlke is a western Nebraska farm kid all grown up. He’s been based in Okotoks, Alberta, for about 15 years using his doctoral degree in ruminant nutrition and his second doctoral degree in veterinary medicine to guide feedyards in the U.
S. and abroad. He still spends a great deal of his time in southwest Nebraska on his family’s farming operation.
About six years ago, he had just returned from Kazakhstan where he was advising a feedyard on nutrition and animal health. He was planting corn near Benkelman, Neb., and was looking around at the area.
A substantial amount of corn is grown in this area, irrigated by the Ogallala Aquifer, and used for cattle feed and ethanol production on both sides of the state line. Behlke has traveled to feedyards all over the world, but that day in the tractor seat, he realized that western Nebraska is the best place in the country to feed cattle. That was six years ago.
In the next two weeks, Blackshirt Feeders – the name a nod to Behlke’s beloved Husker defense – will accept their first loads of cattle to feed near Haigler, Neb. Behlke makes no bones about his goals. Blackshirt will be the most environmentally friendly feedyard in the world.
Its western border, coincidentally, is less than half a mile from the Colorado line, safely in a pro-ag state under the leadership of Gov. Jim Pillen. Pillen is a hog man and a veterinarian and a staunch supporter of his state’s agriculture industry.
Pillen knows which side his corn is buttered on. There are a few things that make Blackshirt innovative. Roller-compacted concrete makes up the pen floor surfaces, making the pens impermeable to water.
Cattle are more comfortable and perform better when they’re not in muddy pens, less resources are used to scrape the pens clean, and flies and dust are reduced. The smell of money isn’t as appreciated by some as by cattle feeders and this material will also reduce odor. Because the pen floors – which will be bedded with corn stalks or wheat straw, so the cattle aren’t standing on concrete like a Wal Mart greeter – are impermeable, precipitation runs off the surface and into high density, polyethylene lined catch basins.
The facility utilizes anaerobic digesters, and the runoff and manure will be processed and will create a digestate, similar to compost, that will be made available to corn growers for high quality fertilizer. The digesters also create renewable natural gas. As the yard is filled, they will be net users of natural gas to power the boilers that run the corn flakers.
Once at capacity, the feedyard will be net producers of natural gas and will be able to pipe it to a large field south of Wray, Colo., to enter a commercial line. Talk about powerful poop.
The yard is also using a significant number of what are known as beef on dairy cattle. These are beef bull sired calves from dairy bred females. They have the high-quality carcass traits and black hide of the sire, and the consistency of their dam.
Dairy calves are also assigned an electronic id or EID, at birth that allows the dairy and the feedyard to track all of the stats and treatment records of that individual from birth to harvest. It is the traceability and transparency consumers are asking for. There are also benefits to the local ag economy, with an increased demand for corn and a nearby outlet for feeding calves.
According to Nebraska Public Power District’s Economic Development department’s research and use of the multipliers made available by NPPD with gross sales, Behlke anticipates a $366 million economic impact annually. In the four-county area including Dundy, Chase, Hitchcock, and Hayes Counties, the annual gross sales of livestock is currently about $525 million annually. Adding Blackshirt’s estimated gross sales will inject about a 70% increase.
Consumer dollars circulate nearly an estimated 3 times for each dollar paid to an employee so the anticipated $8.2 to 8.3 million payrolls for 120 to 130 employees, equates to an additional $25 million circulating annually within the community.
Employee housing is being built in Holyoke, and the first wave of employees will be moving into the structures in the coming weeks. Blackshirt is a solid example of how the cattle feeding industry and ag can benefit economies, rural communities, consumers, and producers and shouldn’t be a target of misguided angst. It’s a success story from the roller-compacted concrete ground up.
Rachel Gabel is a longtime agriculture writer and the assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine..
