George Chan on the Whole Story behind the Irno Pretto Integrated Farm in Brazil
It is Saturday night, and to-morrow I can sleep late. So I am just in the mood to reminisce about a project I did with love and care, when I thought I was in good health and spirit at the age of 77. It was also the first time I fell ill while on mission, and I had an angioplasty operation there.
With Alexandre Takamatsu and his dedicated team at TECPAR (Technological Research Institute of the State od Parana), after I ran a short course on Integrated Farming Systems for them, I visited a farm belonging to Mr & Mrs Irno Pretto in Toledo in the State of Parana. They had 250 sows producing about 5,000 weaned piglets yearly for a big firm named SADIA, which then supplied those piglets to many farmers for grow-out during six months, with feeds and prophylactics supplied to them. Then SADIA collected the pigs, and paid a fixed price per head, for SADIA to slaughter and sell the meat locally and overseas, especially in Europe where the prices were very good.
SADIA’s slaughter house had a fully conventional treatment plant for the wastes that was working satisfactorily, with the treated effluent discharged into a river. It also had a costly grease separator, followed by coagulation, and the treated solids were disposed of on lands. These operations cost much money, with no returns to SADIA. Much efforts were made by SADIA to cut down these costs, so they were ready to try my innovative processes such as Digesters, Basins and Ponds.
The farmers operating the grow-out for SADIA were not treating any of their pig wastes, which were just washed into earthen ponds and sometimes spread on land, but they were running short of space. So SADIA was prepared to help Irno Pretto to do something about treating the wastes differently. It was a good opportunity for me to design an integrated pilot system there.
I first built a Digester of 50m3 with steel plates for the primary treatment of the Organic pig wastes using the Anaerobic Bacteria naturally present in the intestines of humans, pigs and all warm-blooded animals, as Brazil produces its own steel, so the latter is relatively cheap. Unfortunately, it will rust with time, so has to be painted with protective paint. It was commissioned in June, winter in that part of the world in the southern hemisphere, but the BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) Reduction, which is a measure of the treatment from the digester, of 60%. However, by November the efficiency shot up to 90%. There was a good production of BIOGAS, which was stored separately in synthetic rubber bags, in the form of a sausage, as it was used as fuel for an electricity generator.
The digested effluent was further treated in shallow basins, where natural ALGAE (Chlorella) grew and produced Free Oxygen by photosynthesis to treat more Organic wastes by Oxidation, with another BOD Reduction of up to 30%. The oxidized effluent, up to 90% treated, was discharged into large and deep Stabilization Ponds, where Natural Plankton grew prolifically for Polyculture of FISH, raised as FEED and/or FOOD. The beauty was that if the plankton-feeder kinds of fish were used, then there would be NO need to purchase Artificial Feeds.
So instead of just spending money to treat the livestock wastes, as was done at SADIA, the Integrated farm of Irno Pretto produced its own Biogas FUEL, Photosynthetic OXYGEN, Planktonic FEED, and Organic FERTILIZER to make the farming operations self-reliant as well as eventually self-sustaining.
SADIA also asked me to take a look at their Research Station to see what kind of improvement I could suggest. Unfortunately, Alexandre takamatsu had to rush me to hospital for a angioplasty operation . . .
One year later, Irno Pretto increased the number of sows from 250 to 400 to produce up to 8,000 weaned piglets yearly. They duplicated the Digester, with a total capacity of 100m3. In 2004, the Bank of Brazil, which provided the loan to build the treatment plant, paid a First-Class air ticket for me to visit the Irno Pretto Farm among a dozen of them in the State of Parana and Rio Grande do Sul, when I saw the second Digester.
At that time, only Irno Pretto was there to supervise all the operations at the farm, He told me happily that his son and daughter, together with their spouses, who used to work a full day at the farm before my intervention, now only wor two hours in the morning, and then go to a full-time job in town.
Later on, TECPAR helped another big farm of pigs and chickens to establish an Integrated Farm for the Meneguetti Family, with a steel digester of 100m3 with the respective basins and ponds.
Just recently, a British photographer went to Irno Pretto Farm to make a film that was projected at the 8th International Permaculture Conference. His remark was that George Chan did not realise what beneficial changes he has made to all the farming operations.
What a hell of a story!
George
