Aug. 29—CROOKSTON, Minn. — A Crookston agricultural company is turning landfill waste into regenerative agriculture, partnering with American Crystal Sugar to convert sugar beet byproducts into fertilizer.
Bryan Boll, owner of Northstar Lime, said the driving force behind Northstar is turning waste products into something useful and nurturing the soil farmers need to grow their crops.
“I believe in crop diversity, I believe in the regenerative agriculture side of things,” he said. “I think as farmers we need to take better care of our soil. And we only have a limited amount of soil, it’s important that we take good care of it. That’s the driving force behind a lot of the things I do.”
Northstar Lime began the morning with a presentation highlighting the company’s beginnings and journey to its current state of operations. Boll led the presentation alongside Chief Financial Officer Phil Schramm before turning the tour of the Northstar facility over to General Manager Chris Bowles.
Members of the Crookston City Council, the mayor, members of the economic development association and people from the U.S. Department of Agriculture were in attendance, including USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development Basil Gooden. The USDA awarded Northstar a $4.4 million grant in October 2023 that was used for the project, and members were on hand to monitor progress.
Boll explained that 23 years ago, his trucking company contracted with American Crystal Sugar to haul byproducts to landfills, such as tailings and lime — pieces of sugar beets removed before processing and waste created during processing, respectively. He learned then that American Crystal would no longer have a landfill in 23 years. Now that time has passed, he said he doesn’t want to see another landfill built. The lime that comes from the sugar stream is full of good things for the soil, he said, and can be used instead of thrown away.
“In that lime is nitrogen, potash, phosphate, zinc, boron, you name it,” he said. “It’s a waste product in the sugar stream, but it’s a valuable resource for agriculture.”
In addition to the approximately 90,000 tons of lime that American Crystal Sugar produces each year, there are other byproducts in the state that are wasted, Boll said. Minnesota is the nation’s largest producer of turkeys, he said, which produces turkey litter, or manure. There’s also dairy, beef and chicken litter that could be a valuable source of fertilizer. On the plant side, there are sunflower husks, oat husks, corn stalks and other byproducts that are generally landfilled or burned.
As for the lime, Northstar Lime began spraying it onto the fields. However, the material was sticky, dusty and difficult to work with, so the company looked for ways to better get it onto the fields, especially those farther out from Crookston.
Northstar purchased a building from Simplot in Crookston and converted it into its facility, though it’s not yet fully operational, Bowles said. The facility currently features a biochar pyrolyzer, a machine that converts biomass into an ash-like, carbon-rich black residue through thermal decomposition. Materials such as husks and beet pulp are put through the pyrolyzer, and the heat generated by the process is used to dry the lime. The manure and lime are put into a circular compactor, which consists of two steel rollers that push down 20 tons per linear inch, Bowles said. The materials are turned into pellets, which Boll said could go into a spinner spreader, which most farmers have access to, and spread over their fields.
“The idea is to make our lime and fertilizer pellets so that every farmer can use them and they spread beautifully,” he said.
Gooden said it’s been extremely rewarding to see how the USDA’s investment has led to what Northstar has accomplished so far. In 2022, the USDA made $500 million available under the Fertilizer Production Expansion program to increase production of innovative domestic fertilizers, increasing that number to $900 million by 2023. In October 2023, Northstar received a $4.4 million grant as part of the program, and Gooden said it’s an investment in solutions that come from people who want to make a difference and keep things in their own communities.
“We’re just happy at the USDA to be a part of this,” he said. “I think this can really be a model for the country. People can see what’s happening here in Crookston, with produce that would normally go to a landfill or not be used at all. You’re addressing sustainability and regenerative agriculture, and I think you have all the elements that are really needed to move agriculture into the future, 50, 100 years from now.”
