Blantyre Farms owners Edwina and Michael Beveridge are taking the farm’s circular production model a step further with a new on-farm feed mill. Photo: Rabobank.
A Young pig producer already turning manure into electricity and thousands of tonnes of unwanted food into livestock feed will take its circular farming model a step further with a new on-farm feed mill.
Blantyre Farms has secured $1 million from the NSW Government’s Agriculture Industries Innovation and Growth Program to build the facility.
The Blantyre project is one of 14 sharing $28 million in NSW Government funding, with fellow Hilltops business Freeman Vineyards also among the successful applicants.
Recipients are contributing a further $77.5 million, taking total investment across regional NSW to $105.5 million.
For Blantyre Farms co-owner Edwina Beveridge, the project builds on a system the farm has been refining for years.
She said Blantyre already used liquid feeding to combine conventional feed with wet and dry by-products from food manufacturing, including milk, whey, yoghurt, ice cream, pasta, dough and bread.
“Each year we recycle more than 30,000 tonnes of food by-products that would otherwise be wasted,” Mrs Beveridge said.
“Our new on-farm feed mill will allow us to manufacture a much more concentrated feed specifically designed to work with our liquid feeding system.
“This means we can increase the proportion of food waste in our rations, further reducing our reliance on grain, which in turn further improves the efficiency and sustainability of our operation.”
The mill is expected to manufacture more than 2000 tonnes of concentrated feed each year, enough to meet all of Blantyre Farms’ requirements.
Mrs Beveridge said the concentrate would provide the vitamins and minerals needed to balance the increased proportion of food by-products, with rations formulated by the farm’s nutritionist.
“Ultimately, the project enables us to recover more valuable food resources that would otherwise end up in landfill while continuing to produce high-quality Australian pork,” she said.
Established near Young in 2007 by Michael and Edwina Beveridge, Blantyre Farms has grown into a mixed farming operation incorporating wheat, barley and canola cropping alongside beef, wool, lamb and pig production.
It employs about 40 people, produces around 40,000 pigs a year and estimates it injects more than $2.2 million directly into the local community annually.
Many of those enterprises are linked through measures designed to reduce waste and make better use of energy and nutrients across the farm.
The new feed mill will also draw electricity from another of Blantyre’s long-running innovations – its manure-to-biogas system.
In 2011, Blantyre became the first Australian farm to register a project under the Federal Government’s Carbon Farming Initiative, using covered effluent ponds to capture methane from pig manure and convert it into electricity.
The system now generates more than 1500 megawatt hours of renewable electricity a year, enough to power the piggery, with surplus electricity exported to the grid.
“We also currently flare some excess biogas, which we will be able to utilise with the additional requirement for electricity,” Mrs Beveridge said.
She said the feed mill would allow Blantyre Farms to use more of that energy on-site, further closing the loop across the operation.
That cycle extends beyond feed and electricity, with nutrient-rich material left after the biogas is captured used on the farm’s paddocks as fertiliser, reducing reliance on synthetic fertiliser and returning nutrients to the soil.
While the feed mill itself is based on proven technology, Mrs Beveridge said it was the way it would be incorporated into Blantyre’s existing systems that made the project unusual.
“What makes the Blantyre Farms project unique is how this technology is being integrated into our existing liquid feeding system to maximise the use of food manufacturing by-products and powering it with renewable electricity we generate ourselves,” she said.
Producing the concentrate on farm is also expected to reduce feed transport requirements, alongside lowering reliance on grain and improving energy self-sufficiency.
Blantyre’s approach to reducing waste and making better use of resources has already attracted statewide recognition.
In 2018, the farm won the Resource Efficiency Award at the NSW Green Globe Awards, while Mrs Beveridge had earlier been named runner-up in the 2014 NSW Rural Women’s Award for work including the farm’s renewable energy and food-waste initiatives.
The project fits closely with the aims of the Agriculture Industries Innovation and Growth Program, which supports the uptake of new technology and equipment to improve productivity and supply chains, open access to new markets and lower emissions.
Successful applicants were required to contribute at least half the cost of their projects.
The project will also create one full-time skilled position at Blantyre Farms, as well as additional work in administration, purchasing and inventory management.
Mrs Beveridge said increasingly sophisticated agricultural technology was creating opportunities for regional workers to develop new skills while supporting long-term employment.
Construction will begin once planning and regulatory approvals have been received from Hilltops Council.
The project is expected to take about a year to complete, with Blantyre Farms hoping to have the feed mill fully operational by June 2027.
