Converting manure into electricity nets farmers fed reward

Owners of a dairy and turkey farm turning manure into electricity are among the first farmers in Utah qualified to receive federal payments for environmentally sensitive practices.

In a ceremony last week at their 1,000-acre farm, Scott and Edwin Sunderland signed a contract under the new Conservation Security Program of the Natural Resource Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service).

The Sunderland operation is one of 91 Utah farms in Sanpete, Cache and San Juan counties selected to participate. Sylvia Gillen, NRCS state conservationist, said the farms would share $1.2 million that the agency has allocated for Utah. She said the money would reward the farmers for work on their lands that promotes "clean air, pure water, abundant fish and wildlife and beautiful rural vistas."

Kyle Stephens, state deputy commissioner of agriculture, said the new farm program represents the "dawning of a new day for agricultural resource protection."

By protecting their land and water and finding energy-efficient ways to farm, producers like the Sunderlands are "helping make agriculture sustainable for future generations," he said.

Suzanne Dean/Sanpete Messenger

Full Story: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600156932,00.html

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Power Supply Is Down in the Dumps

By Mike Nowak

In Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital city, the overwhelmed city garbage company only picks up half of the 3,500 tons of waste discarded each day; the rest is left to rot in streets and sewers.

The majority of the trash that does get collected ends up at the massive Matuail dump, a 50-acre pile of debris that is nearing capacity just 11 years after it opened.

And with 80 percent of the city’s waste comprised of organic matter, all that festering garbage releases copious amounts of methane — a greenhouse gas more than 20 times more destructive than carbon dioxide.

But thanks to an ambitious nonprofit organization called Waste Concern http://www.wasteconcern.org/ and an innovative financing system recently enabled by the Kyoto Protocol, Dhaka’s garbage may soon be seen as a boon instead of a problem.

Full Story: http://wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68491,00.html