Stauffer Farms

Building success alongside sand for Stauffer Farms

In upstate New York, Stauffer Farms uses fine sand for bedding material because its management prioritizes the health and comfort of its herd. While Stauffer Farms explored building an RNG facility, ownership found potential partners failed to understand why this mattered to them. In fact, many RNG companies tried to convince Stauffer Farms it should abandon sand bedding as a management practice.

Putting Stauffer Farms first led to a solution
LF Bioenergy took a different approach. Because it puts Farmers First, the company prioritized developing a relationship with Stauffer Farms so it could understand why sand bedding was so important to the farm’s management and cow comfort. Ultimately, LF Bioenergy proposed an RNG facility on site could be built without affecting the farm’s management choices.

“We designed the system to integrate with the farm’s operations,” said LF Bioenergy Executive Vice President of Feedstock & Marketing Cyn French.

The result has been an exceptionally good partnership since 2023 with unique advantages for Stauffer Farms and numerous benefits for the community and environment.

Project highlights

• LF Bioenergy designed filtering to optimize biogas yields and minimize the effect on equipment from converting sand-laden manure into RNG.
• A tailored solution enhanced Stauffer’s manure management systems by including additional sand lanes to filter and process manure before entering the digester.
• Stauffer Farms now offsets greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing 18,200 vehicles from the road each year, or the carbon sequestration equivalent of 89,279 acres of U.S. forests.
• The Stauffer Farms RNG operation produces approximately 130,000 MMBtu of RNG annually.
• The RNG operation significantly improved air and water quality in the surrounding area by reducing odor and emissions.