The business known today as Vermont Natural Ag Products was a logical offshoot of a methane digester installed on the farm in 1982. Always anxious to try something new, the Fosters responded to the energy crisis of the '80s by going with a methane digester and using the fuel from their own cows to run an electrical generator.

Cows Provide Electricity

The electricity produced on the dairy farm was sold at first to a utility. But the rates paid to smaller power producers were gradually reduced until the Fosters decided it could be to their economic advantage to use the electricity right on their own farm.

They now have a combination methane/diesel generator that uses an estimated 70 percent methane and 30 percent diesel fuel. It produces enough electricity to power the entire dairy complex as well as three houses on the farm.

The digester separates liquids from solids in the manure. Liquids are pumped to a lagoon and eventually spread on farm land. Initially the Fosters used the solids as bedding for the cows. "Then we said to ourselves, 'Gee whiz, maybe there can be a better return for the solids.' So we started putting it in bags, using a scoop and a balance scale," explained Jim Foster, Sr., one of the farm's owners.

Today, solids coming out of the digester are trucked a few hundred yards down the road where it is mixed with other materials and, in a process that requires six weeks, becomes rich, crumbly, odorless compost. The product must then be cured, dried, mixed, bagged, and shipped to stores. The entire process from starting a compost pile through marketing until a check is received back at the farm is usually 18 months.

The composting business on the Foster Brothers farm has grown to cover an area of five acres, most of that in long rows of composting material. The business employs 14 people and utilizes an array of unique equipment including turners, screeners, dryers, and mixers.

Counting the Cost

Composting on this scale has not been a quick and easy business to get into. The Fosters report they have spent $150,000 for a screening machine, two loaders that cost around $100,000 each, and a used windrower they picked up for $40,000.

While manure supplies the nitrogen, wood and woody plant materials provide the carbon necessary for making compost. Piles of the mixed material in long rows are turned to reintroduce oxygen, the other necessary element in composting.

The farm was started in the 1930s by the great-grandfather of the present owners, Robert and Jim, Sr., who wanted to keep his three boys "off the streets of Middlebury." Those three boys, Ben, Howard, and George, eventually became the owners of the farm. Today, the sons and grandchildren of the three brothers are in the process of buying out the three elder Fosters.

Built for Fire Protection

After a fire destroyed the dairy barn in '57, the Fosters rebuilt the dairy complex as a group of separate buildings to reduce fire danger. Included in that construction was the first herringbone milking parlor east of the Mississippi, according to Jim, Sr. The barns were expanded in '64, '72, and '78. By that time they were up to a milking herd of 300 cows, a large dairy at that time.

Cows are fed a TMR of haylage, some dry hay, corn silage, and concentrate. With over 1,500 acres of land, and another 400 acres of rented farm land, they produce more than enough for their own herd and sell the remainder. They sell custom mixes to other dairies based on the recommendations of a dairy nutritionist.

The Fosters raise all their own dairy replacements, and they have developed a heifer-raising facility that has become a model for other farms. They have about 240 head of young stock at any one time. These animals are divided into four groups according to age. Each group is kept in its own freestall barn that is sized to fit the animals it houses. The individual barns are all constructed so they can be cleaned by machine.

For the Family

Expanding into the compost business was more than just a good business decision for the Fosters. There was a very practical generational aspect to the move. The family's younger members were becoming interested in returning home and working on the farm. Now, Jim, Sr.'s children, Mark and Jim, Jr., and Robert's daughter Heather work at and are part owners of the farm. "As this keeps growing, there is more room for family members than if we had just stayed a dairy farm," Robert said.

This family is always looking for new opportunities. Their latest idea, still on the drawing board, is to use the methane from the digester in the production of bio-diesel that utilizes plant oils. The Fosters believe other farmers would really go for the concept of running their tractors on fuel from their own cows.