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‘Cowpie Compost’ helps farm, environment, plus gardeners

11.09.04

MIDLAND, Va. — A Northern Virginia farm family is hoping its new composting business will increase profits, help the environment and keep their suburban neighbors happy.
Cowpie Compost is the new venture of brothers Ronnie and Jimmy Messick, who run Lakeside Dairy, a family partnership that’s been milking cows in Fauquier County since 1922. Over the years, their dairy herd has grown from 20 to 350 Holstein cows, and the farm operation has increased from 90 acres to more than 1,000.
Meanwhile, the encroaching suburbs are making their community increasingly sensitive to farm noise and smells.
“We’ll be spreading 25 percent to 35 percent less manure by bringing the solid wastes inside” to cure into compost, Ronnie Messick said.
Messick and his brother unveiled their 1,300-square-foot facility Oct 14. Six huge bins held tons of dairy manure in various stages of decomposition. Steam rose from many of the bins, where the internal temperature of the manure was 140 degrees. When cured this way, it takes only 60 days for the manure to be ready for sale as finished compost.
“Today we invited lots of landscape companies, representatives from the vineyard industry and area nurseries. We’ve had two customers today already, and sold about 85 cubic yards,” Messick said.
In rapidly developing Northern Virginia, the potential market for locally-produced compost is huge, according to Peter Moon, a consultant with O2Compost Systems & Training. Once the word gets out to local gardeners, he predicted they would be lining up their pickup trucks for loading. Homeowners and gardeners “flock for this stuff,” he said, as he held out a double-handful of the finished compost for display. The crumbly, dry material had an attractive chocolate-brown color and no smell.
Moon said any type of intensive animal agriculture operation could build a similar composting facility and create another revenue stream for the farm. But he said dairies have the best profit potential, simply because of the huge volume of manure they must handle.
Messick agreed, saying one of the primary reasons he and his brother invested $300,000 for the composting facility and separator equipment was that they were running out of places to safely dispose of their waste products.
“We’re constantly trying to get it spread safely. But it’s also a regulatory problem, because the (Virginia) Department of Environmental Quality wants to know wherever and whenever it is spread,” he said.