Managing Regulations and Regulators
Mike Johnson
Owner
Heartland Sustainable Farms
Fair Oaks, Indiana
Jasper County Indiana, located in NW Indiana is number one in the state for corn silage,alfalfa, and milk production. Over 30,000 milking head exist in the region. We are alsolocated 1.5 hours from downtown Chicago. Plenty of raw ingredients exist for highquality compost making, but no one has attempted to bring all these elements together.
Heartland Sustainable Farms currently custom applies 300 million gallons ofmanure annually and in an effort to better service their customers and motivated by thevalue of being responsible and maximizing the manure is in year two of development ofa 20 acre composting site. In 2016, we created 2- 100 windrows and used a selfpropelled turner to attempt compost on site of one of our clients. This made us realizethe value of composting manure and initiated the vision for a 20 acre composting site.
We will discuss a brief history of the project development, some ways we aregenerating revenue before compost is even being made, are plans for compostrevenue, and some of the hiccups and hang ups encountered and overcome during thislarge scale project.