Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a $120 million investment in six biochar projects across the US as part of the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program (FPEP).
The news was shared by USDA Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small during a visit to Dramm Corporation, where she introduced this decision as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s strategy to strengthen American farms.
This investment is expected to boost innovative methods for domestic fertilizer production. To that end, the award will go towards companies that are developing biochar projects in Arkansas, California, Illinois, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Located in Port Angeles, Washington, Myno Carbon Corp. is one of the USDA award recipients. The company is set to obtain a $20.49 million grant to construct a large-scale biochar facility that will utilize waste timber biomass as feedstock.
According to Myno Carbon, once operational, their plant will be able to produce 40,000 tons of biochar annually that will be used by 5,000 agricultural producers in the Pacific Northwest.
Arkansas-based LSB Industries was awarded $77 million to expand the capacity of its urea and ammonium nitrate facility to 580,000 tons per year, providing around 450,000 users within a four-state region with access to its products.
With a $3 million grant, South Dakota’s Agtegra Cooperative will invest a total of $6 million to expand its Prescription Agronomics starter fertilizer manufacturing facility in Ipswich, doubling its manufacturing capacity with the help of production and storage add-ons.
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The planned expansion will include a new container packaging line and additional warehouse storage, and the company also intends to use the means to install one 500 000 gal liquid fertilizer storage tank at both its Kimball and McLaughlin facilities.
Agtegra is hopeful that this financial support will enable them to increase their annual fertilizer production amount from 26,175 tons to 53,270 tons.
Betley Farms in Wisconsin will use a $3.5 million USDA grant to install and operate a nutrient concentration system, expected to generate 39 million gallons of liquid product every year.
Central Coast Worm Farm LLC ($4.3M) in California and Innovafeed Corporation ($11.7M) in Illinois are the remaining recipients of the USDA biochar funding.
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