From an
article by Deb Fitzgerald posted on WISinfo.com:
Bus tours carry people to Forestville from far flung places like Argentina and Brazil so visitors may witness the successful business practices of S&S Ag Enterprises, LLC.
Owned by Adrian and Kay Schmidt, in partnership with their son and daughter-in-law, Randy and Dena, the limited liability corporation is the largest heifer-raising farm in Wisconsin.
The custom operation is like a bovine daycare for 13 different dairy farms in northeast Wisconsin, boarding some 4,000 heifers, or young females that haven’t calved yet. . . .
The Schmidts’ heifers don’t produce calves or milk, but they do produce 14 million gallons of dung per year, which eventually fertilizes the Schmidts’ 5,000 acres of corn, wheat, alfalfa and soybeans.
With a $250,000 seed grant from Focus on Energy, the Schmidts will, beginning next year, first feed all that organic waste to a $1.8 million anaerobic digester that’s built into the ground like a 210-foot long, 72-foot wide, 166-foot deep septic tank.
By next fall, the busloads of visitors will have another reason to tour the southern Door County operation: a renewable energy system that’s connected to the utility grid, converting heifer waste into enough electricity to power 400 homes.
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