Improving Manure Management for a Safer "Manure Share"

Manure management has always been a problem for farmers.

A little bit of nature's fertilizer is a wonderful thing. When it accumulates in large stockpiles, though, the natural byproduct of munching cows can pollute the waterways and poison the air.

Recently, farmers have introduced a novel way to distribute the 335 million tons of manure that America's agricultural animals produce every year. These arrangements are called "manure shares," and they harness the power of the internet to spread the world's oldest organic fertilizer far and wide.

Gardeners and vegetable farmers sign up, animal farmers share out the waste, and everyone goes home happy. In single-serving doses, manure works its nitrogen-rich magic on crops and gardens. Meanwhile, farmers avoid an environmental disaster on their land. It's a win-win.

There's just one challenge. How do you pack up the 150 pounds of manure that a dairy cow can loose on the world every day and safely send it to that distant gardener at the bottom your list?

Handling Manure at the Point of Origin

Farming is backbreaking work at its best. The producer of the local manure share won't want to shovel payloads into pickup trucks, especially with folks showing up several times a week for their take.

As in the problem of manure management itself, the solution may be to disburse the problem. Here's a worthwhile scenario: Members of a manure share simply drop off their own bins at the producer's barn.

In the evening, a farm hand shovels manure directly into each delivery bin. (For this reason, it's best to choose a tub with low sides; don't make the worker toss shovels of manure into a tall trash can.)

Then, when members arrive for their shares, a common piece of material handling equipment handles the heavy lifting. All it takes is a Bin Dumper stowed in the barn. These machines lift and empty containers of anything, and a Multi-Tip Bin Dumper can easily dump out 300 pounds of manure (or more).

Farmers can use the Bin Dumper to transfer a share of manure into a recipient's truck, no lifting required. The entire transaction could be over in 20 seconds.

Turning Manure into a Business

Of course, some farmers might not want to simply give away valuable fertilizer. More than one agricultural worker has monetized their farm's extra output. These agrarian entrepreneurs compost their manure. They sterilize it, roll it into dry pellets, and pack it into bags for sale across the country.

This approach takes a potential problem and turns it into a secondary source of income. If you choose to go this route, though, material handling equipment is even more important to prevent musculoskeletal injuries.

You might only expect to find Bin Dumpers in warehouses and waste disposal facilities. In fact, they're worth their weight in gold on a farm. No matter how you plan to get rid of the stuff, Bin Dumpers make manure management simpler and safer all around.

References:

Danovich, Tove. "What To Do With All of the Poo?" ModernFarmer. Modern Farmer Media, 22 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 July 2017.