The Camli Besicilik (Yasar Group) animal husbandry and breeding facilities established in 1987 care for up to 18,000 beef animals and nearly two million turkeys each year. This operation provides animals for the Pinar Meat company which is part of theYasar Group family of companies. A second activity at the Camli Besicilik animal farms is the environmentally sound and economically productive management of the up to 125,000 tons of manure produced by the animals each year. This quantity translates toas much as 342 tons of manure each day. Handling this material proficiently and in an environmentally responsible manner, while operating in a positive cash flow mode is a daunting challenge. This presentation describes the Camli strategy. The manure management program consists of manure collection, composting, pelletizing the compost, and marketing the compost as well as the pellets to agricultural and horticultural farms. Each week manure from the feed lots, holding pens, breeding facilities, and growing houses is collected and transported to the temporary storage and windrow composting facilities. There the compost windrows are mechanically turned as water is added to enhance the composting process. After six to eight weeks the drying and composting process has slowed and the active composting process is essentially complete. The dry compost is screened and pelletized. The pellets are placed into plastic bags that contain 25 kg or about 30 liters of material. The pellets are being marketed as BioFarm, an Organic Fertilizer. One challenge was to figure out how Camli could sell the compost at a price the farmers could afford in an economically stressed area. This involved in working with greenhouse vegetable growers and Camli staff to understand just what the farmers expected the product to achieve as an Organic Fertilizer. But it also required developing an understanding with Camli how the pelletized product should be presented to the farmers, and guidance on how the product could be used successfully. As long as the farmers are successful economically, the Organic Fertilizer product would continue to sell. The relationship had to be a win-win operation.
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