Pig Power

Berrybank Farm is home to 15,000 pigs. This large scale intensive feedlot farm, operated by Melville Charles, is located at Windermere west of Ballarat.

Pigs’ bodies are only capable of utilising half of the food they eat - the rest is lost as waste. This creates a huge waste management problem for the farm. The large number of pigs at Berrybank produce the same quantity of effluent as a city of 40,000 people - almost two-thirds as much as the City of Ballarat. Imagine if all the effluent from intensive feedlot farms was released in to the environment untreated. What would happen?

To address this problem, Melville Charles has devised an innovative system of waste management which is efficient and economical. The system recycles the total quantity of effluent to produce useable products. This is done by means of an anaerobic digester which breaks down organic matter using bacteria. The process is similar to digestion in the human body.

Berrybank’s recycling system cost approximately $2 million to install. That cost was repaid in five years through sales of the products and efficiency savings.

Products of the recycling system are electricity, water, solid organic matter and grit. Electricity is generated on the site from the conversion of biogas (from the breakdown of pig effluent) into heat. The electricity is used on the farm and sold to the national power grid.

Water is removed from the effluent at various points in the recycling process. Mineralised water is used to irrigate and fertilise the fields surrounding the pig farm. Cleaner water is used daily to flush out the pig pens.

Gritty matter contained in the effluent is removed early in the recycling process and sold to a worm farm as worm food.

The final product of the recycling process is solid organic matter resembling soil which is mixed with bark, minerals and other substances to be sold as garden products such as potting mix, fertiliser and compost mixture.

Melville Charles has created an environmentally friendly system which recycles waste rather than polluting the environment. Berrybank Farm’s recycling system converts a major management problem into a profitable sideline.

Next Case Study

Pigs at Berrybank Farm

Rivers of waste: collecting pig effluent at Berrybank Farm

Jock Charles bagging potting mix made from processed pig manure