The Cows of Stauffer Farms: How Large Dairy Operations Have an Opportunity To Turn Cow Manure Into Natural Gas

Between Potsdam and Malone sits a St. Lawrence dairy classic. “My father founded it in 1977, and it was 40 cows then. I came back to the farm in 1999; at that point, we were about 300 cows. In the next 25 years, we have grown to about 4,500,” Aaron Stauffer, partial owner of Stauffer Farms LLC, says.  

All five of the barns on the property are equipped with free stalls. This means no animal is stuck in one spot; they sit, stand, move, eat and defecate as they please within their section. Throughout the day, farmhands systematically go from barn to barn, sending groups of livestock to the milking parlor. As the cattle move in masses within the cavernous farm buildings, like black-and-white spotted water flowing between a canal of pens, they crane their necks toward the farmhands, seeking a gentle nose rub.  

Men shout directions at the animals and maneuver the cows into one of the two milking parlors on the property. While the cows are milked, workers put new feed down for the bovine and remove feces from the sand which serves as bedding in their pens. After the milking parlor, the farmhands send the herd one by one through an automatic gate that uses a scanner to check the collar that every cow wears to monitor its habits. This data helps the farmers determine if an animal is sick or in heat. When the cows aren’t being milked, they stand in their stalls eating silage and creating manure. The workers send this waste into a pipe of liquid manure which constantly flows to the onsite biofuel digester.  

With the agricultural sector making up around six percent of New York State’s greenhouse gas emissions, farmers hold a certain amount of importance in our state’s role in the climate crisis. According to Amanda Leland of the Environmental Defense Fund, “Cutting methane pollution is one of the fastest and most effective ways to slow climate change in the near term. That’s because it’s a particularly potent greenhouse gas — with more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time span.” However, imagine if there was a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions and turn these emissions into renewable, clean biofuel.  

The owners of Stauffer Farms have partnered with biofuel digestion company LF Bioenergy to create an onsite renewable natural gas facility which turns manure into safe and clean biofuel. The digester, owned and operated by LF Bioenergy, is located just behind Stauffer’s cow barns and provides several benefits. Over a 30-day cycle, it processes 20,000 tons of manure, converting the cow feces into natural gas. According to Stauffer, the manure byproduct left after the cycle is more valuable after processing than when it first entered the digester. “They give it back to us more completely digested. It makes our nutrient management a little bit easier. There are some nicer things about the way it comes out, it smells less, it’s more bioavailable,” says Stauffer regarding the farm receiving used manure from the LF Bioenergy Facility. This bodes well for both their silage fields, which gain more nutrients and can produce more efficiently, as well as for the farm’s neighbors, who are less burdened when the manure is eventually spread by the farmhands. Another benefit Stauffer sees is the profit generated from the facility both from the gas produced as well as from selling carbon credits.  

A 2022 study done by the Environmental Protection Agency found that nine percent of all methane emissions in the United States come from dairy waste. Farmers now have a unique opportunity to cut this number significantly while simultaneously creating a biofuel that is put directly into natural gas pipelines servicing both business and residential customers. All the methane used in the production of this gas would otherwise have gone into the atmosphere had it not been converted to natural gas. The facility operating at Stauffer Farms offsets the emissions of over 18,000 vehicles annually. Executive Vice President of LF Bioenergy, Cyn French, added, “Today, our operations provide cumulative environmental benefits equivalent to reducing 60 million gasoline miles.”  

Lee Laviolette, chief operating officer for LF Bioenergy reported that the company currently has four dairy renewable natural gas facilities in operation with two more in construction, including another site in St. Lawrence County which will become operational in early 2025. This will mean an influx of cheaper renewable natural gas with a lower carbon footprint supplied directly to customers in the North Country.  

Some dairy farmers are cautious about projects like these. Dairy farms often run on a very tight budget. With a small bottom line, it may be difficult to justify such a large investment, even given the environmental benefits. Currently, large operations are the only ones that can afford to add digesters of this size, and even then, there is often hesitation when considering the possibility. “I would say any farm of this size has been approached by multiple companies and has decided which direction they’re going to go. Whether they’re going to do one, which company to work with, and some have decided to wait,” Stauffer said. “We came to be comfortable enough with the idea that it wasn’t going to negatively affect our operation and think there is some true environmental benefit to it.”  

As the world moves towards more climate solutions, renewable natural gas is one to keep an eye on. The ability to turn animal waste into clean natural gas while simultaneously eliminating carbon that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere is one that is far too powerful to pass up. “Farms of size are talking about it, and I think eventually most larger ones will end up on the digester because it makes sense,” says Stauffer, who is optimistic about renewable natural gas in the future.