(As you read this op-ed you will see that I never actually accused Vilsack of being unethical. There are many people who promote ag digesters. He is just one of them. Bob)
I was surprised and disappointed that Tom Vilsack was still pushing agricultural anaerobic digesters as a viable means for farmers to make money at a recent Axios Live event in Des Moines. Most dairies must expand to have enough confinement waste to operate digesters economically in order to capture methane gas. That increases the environmental damage to Iowa’s already ag polluted rivers, streams, lakes, soils, and air. It also further increases Iowa’s position as the leading ag polluter of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
Vilsack points to ag digesters as successful in Wisconsin and Iowa. The Green Bay in Lake Michigan had a dead zone for years that the Clean Water Act of 1972 pretty much cleaned up. Now that dead zone is back and the majority of it is caused by the recent use of mega-confinement dairies and ag digesters because their waste, nitrates and phosphorus, are land applied and wash into the Green Bay. Between the spreading of dairy confinement waste, and the ag digester waste, which is even more water soluble than regular dairy waste, that dead zone is once more a problem killing fish and other aquatic life, and there has been no solution yet.
Historically there have been ag digester skeletons around the Midwest for the last 40 years or so. They have been partially built but never operated, or they have been built but didn’t make money and so were closed down. And recently the Trump Administration paused all loans for anaerobic digesters.
From a tnl article: “The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) extended its moratorium on loans for anaerobic digesters – many of which are issued for large-scale farms that turn animal waste into gas – through the end of 2026 due to “persistent and escalating concerns.” The directive this week extended an earlier pause announced in January that halted federal loan guarantees for new anaerobic digester projects due to high loan delinquency and project failures.”
This information doesn’t give much credence to Vilsack’s argument that farmers can make money by building ag digesters.
At some point morals and ethics must be part of the conversation about industrial agriculture. Polluting the land, air, and water, is a moral and ethical problem. Making people sick is a moral and ethical problem. Promoting something that hasn’t been successful making money over the years seems to me to be unethical.
We don’t need the methane gas. We have plenty of gas as it is. So, we don’t need ag digesters. Bob Watson – Decorah