By Susan Williams
Editor
Renco Publishing

From working as Assistant Commissioner of Agriculture from 1979 to 1982, John Baumgartner knew there would be an increasing focus on environmental issues in agriculture.  It’s essentially where Baumgartner Environics, Inc. (BEI) was first conceived, originally as an environmental consulting firm, and now, as an environmental products company, shifting emphasis with the changing marketplace.

BEI started out in 1988 working with producers, cleaning up pesticide, fertilizer and petroleum contaminated sites and doing environmental site assessments. They also developed a number of patented products including Bio-Cap and Bio-Curtain.  In February of this year, BEI found itself downsizing after the consulting market matured. The company shifted emphasis to environmental agriculture products.

Baumgartner said that the company is “crawling now” but they are looking to the future.  “I know what it will take to get there,” said Baumgartner. “In the past, I’ve always underestimated the time it takes a product to get to acceptance.”

Matt Baumgartner recently joined his father, John at BEI. Matt has a degree in environmental science with an emphasis on soil science and John has a BS in agronomy and plant genetics. Both graduated from what they called “Moo U”, or the University of Minnesota, and both know how to find the “free” parking spots on the St. Paul campus.

What has BEI excited these days is an electrostatic particulate ionization (EPI) system as developed by Dr. Bailey Mitchell, Ph.D, P.E., of the USDA’s Agriculture Research Service at the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga.  Using the same principles that were used to scrub smoke stacks for decades, Mitchell developed a system to put a negative charge in the air thereby making any particles that can accept this charge tend to ground out to the earth. Baumgartner explained it’s also the same principle used in smoke-eaters in bars and restaurants. Mitchell successfully adapted the process to be economical in a large environment, with a 60 to 80 percent reduction in dust, odors and pathogens.

“Batabing, bataboom,” said Baumgartner.

In poultry barns, which can contain a lot of dust, pathogens and ammonia and can be inhaled, the EPI charges the particles to make them act much like iron filings on a magnet, clumping them together so they cannot be breathed in. It also makes them fall to the ground.

Baumgartner is convinced that studies to be completed by the end of this year will prove that using the EPI system will improve feed conversion, reduce mortality rates and stress on poultry and livestock raised in containment. With less ammonia in the air to burn the eyes of animals and employees, the system also requires less ventilation, thereby reducing heating costs in the winter.

And all for chicken feed.

The amperage required to run the system is equal to four 60-watt light bulbs for a 600 by 50 foot barn, Baumgartner said, or about $150 annually.

BEI is positioning themselves as a market leader in this area because they are convinced that EPI will become a production tool for anyone producing animals in confinement. It can also improve worker health while it improves the environment.  “We could be the first county to say the number of animals is not the issue,” said Baumgartner. “It’s the environmental impact of those animals and we can reduce that footprint. In a perfect world, we would focus on impact, not on a number.”

A paper presented by Dr. Mitchell at the 2003 American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) reported that use of EPI in a broiler production house reduced airborne dust by an average of 60 percent, ammonia by 56 percent and total bacteria by 76 percent.

In an era of concern for bio-safety in agriculture, reduction of airborne dust, one of the primary means by which disease-causing organisms are spread throughout a barn, will become increasingly important.

Once the system is installed, it can be turned on, set and forgotten, Baumgartner said. There are no moving parts, nothing to wear out and the electrical components can be placed outside the barn and are warranted for five years. The system can also be pressure washed, important in a swine barn.  “What started off as a system to take dust out the environment, if we put inside the barn and get improvements in air quality for animals and workers, instead of just improving the environment we can increase productivity and provide economical and environmental gains,” said Baumgartner. “We’re on a quest to prove that potential and are trying to quantify how much better it is.”

Currently the system is installed in barns around Minnesota, in 64 chicken barns in Ohio and under test in a facility in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada located southeast of Vancouver.

“EPI provides a marvelous opportunity to institute environmental controls that improve our environment and provide an economic return,” Baumgartner said.  BEI is also beginning to focus on manure for thermal energy and how environmental controls can be used to make it pay.  “I am acutely aware of the threat of global warming,” said Baumgartner, expressing sincere concern for the world his children and grandchildren will have to live in.

BEI wants to be the specialist in the area of bringing value to agriculture use of environmental products that are “tried, true and technically accepted” while providing gains for the producer.

“My whole life has been involved in agriculture – social and environmental,” Baumgartner said. “I understand ag and support it.”

Two of the first products developed and patented by BEI to effectively reduce odors, helped in the “Hog Wars” of ‘96 and ‘97 when the industry vertically integrated and tried to control bio-secure herd health to produce bigger and better rates of gain.

Bio-Cap

Bio-Cap, an odor and gas reducing cover for lagoons, is permeable and floats on top. In one day, the cover dramatically reduces odor emissions and continues to improve over the next two weeks. The non-woven, geotextile fabric is made to withstand the sun’s ultraviolet rays and creates an environment in the lagoon for methanogens (bacteria) to attach to waste, reducing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which cause odor. Methanogens need the anaerobic environment (one without oxygen) created by the cover to properly metabolize odors.  “Without spending a lot of money,” said John Baumgartner, “you had pretty doggone good odor control.”

Bio-Curtain

Bio-Curtain is a particle control system which reduces odor by treating exhausted air from animal barns with an electrostatic particle ionization scrubbing system before the air is released into the environment.  A greenhouse-like fabric structure is attached to the end of a livestock barn where air is exhausted. By charging the particles in the exhausted air, most fall to the grounded surface inside, bringing with them a lot of the odor, before the air is finally exhausted vertically instead of horizontally. The shape of the structure creates a swirling air pattern.