By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The problem with disposing of fallen farm animals has been around as long as farmers have tended livestock, but the process can be expensive and has to be done in an environmentally acceptable way.
Last week, a newly formed working group created by the Kentucky Farm Bureau (KFB) met to discuss the problem and possible solutions. The Animal Composting Working Group includes a host of local and state officials who have a stake in the methods in which producers use to rid their farms of dead stock.
Those include leaders from the Kentucky Division of Conservation, University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture (UK), Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy, Kentucky Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Kentucky Division of Water, Kentucky Assoc. of Counties, Kentucky County Judge Executives Assoc., Kentucky Council of Area Development Districts and leaders from various commodity groups.

KFB President Mark Haney said the issue is important, especially for local governments, considering the amount of livestock raised in Kentucky.
“We know that this is a big issue for county governments and fiscal courts. It falls to their laps to do something and hopefully, we are going to come out with some recommendations to move forward,” he said.

The issue came to light nearly two years ago when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented a ruling that changed rendering procedures by mandating the removal of “specific risk materials,” notably the brain and spinal cord, from cattle 30 months and older.

This move effectively brought to a halt the collection services from which many local governments benefited, often at little or no expense, as rendering companies stopped that portion of their business because of the increased costs brought on by the rule change.

“That left many counties really scrambling, trying to figure out what to do with dead animals,” said Haney. He noted before the ruling went into effect, the state probably enjoyed the best-case scenario when it came to dead stock disposal, through the pickup and rendering process.

Many farmers turned to on-farm burial or removal to landfills. Both methods, subject to state regulations, can be expensive and cause environmental concerns.

Last year the Kentucky Agricultural Development Board and the Kentucky Division of Conservation announced the availability of assistance through the Deceased Farm Animal Disposal Assistance Program, to help counties implement or continue a plan for the removal of deceased farm animals within the county. While that program was intended to provide relief in the short term, a UK research project has been geared toward more of a long-term solution through a composting process.

The research involves a more natural way of disposing of dead animals to control the spread of pathogens and disease outbreaks. This method for composting safely breaks down the carcass while keeping pollutants out of the groundwater. It is also an odorless process that doesn’t attract scavengers, and provides an end product that farmers could use as a soil amendment, according to information from UK.

Steve Higgins, director of the Environ-mental Compliance for the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, is heading up the research and said in an earlier interview the practice is the best-kept secret in the state. He added if done right, there are no nuisances associated with this activity, and that a 1,000-pound carcass can be taken care of in about six weeks using this method.

While the group will discuss all methods available, Haney said on-farm composting is doable anywhere in the state, with a reasonable amount of education. “Right now the biggest issue we have come upon, at the farm level, is the permitting process,” he said.

That includes paying a fee for even one animal, according to current regulations.

With the idea of composting comes myriad preconceived notions concerning the process, mostly negative, said Gary Palmer, assistant director of Agriculture and Natural Recourses with the UK Cooperative Extension Service.
“You have to realize that just the word ‘composting’ carries with it a lot of baggage for people,” he said. “You don’t know what kind of buttons a word like that is going to push.”

He said many people think of it as being nasty and smelly, but emphasized this composting process is none of those things if done correctly and moves the state forward in regards to fallen stock disposal. “I really hate to think of Kentucky moving backwards in this respect when we were at a fairly decent spot, not perfect by any means, but a fairly decent spot of improving our natural resources and protecting our streams and groundwater,” Palmer said.
He added when a regulation such as the FDA mandate comes along that imposes a big burden on the farmers as well as other people, it has to be dealt with – and he thinks composting does just that. With such a sensitive issue, this working group will have its work cut out for it, but it is something that needs to be done, noted Haney.

“Certainly there is a lot of work to be done, but the worse thing we could do is nothing,” he said.