David and Heidi Setchell are manufacturers of certified BFA “Allowed Input” compost in the South Australian Riverland region, near Loxton. Their business is called Kaloranoo Pty Ltd and transforms piggery and winery effluent, grape marc and stalks from local wineries, straw and other locally sourced ingredients into compost made to Australian Standard AS4454.

David and Heidi had previously worked in the National Parks and Wildlife Service in SA and the Northern Territory. About four years ago, they were invited to return to the Riverland to manage a fledgling on farm compost business adjacent to Heidi’s fathers’ piggery, which houses approximately 5000 pigs. They jumped at the opportunity because they were interested in composting, but the proposal also included enough flexibility for them to work on other projects.

These other projects include managing a 1000-hectare property near Halidon, in the ‘Murray Mallee’, where they are establishing a broombush plantation, and contract work for NPWS. In SA, broombush was commonly used as a fencing material, until the early 80’s, when native vegetation controls began to limit exploitation of natural bushland. There is now a small but promising industry developing around plantation-grown brush for fencing. David and Heidi have also commenced trial plantings of date palms at Halidon. The contract work for national parks includes coordinating malleefowl monitoring for the SA Murray Darling Basin. Malleefowl are a threatened species, and are thought to be at one of the native species most directly at risk from climate change.

David and Heidi have always made compost at a backyard level and, being from a biological background, had realised the value of the product and taken some interest in the compost-making process. At the time they took on management of the on-farm compost business, it was based primarily on the solid and liquid effluent from the piggery, with minor additions of grape marc (primarily seed waste from local wineries) and almond hulls. They started the development of a more commercial approach with a significant research effort, including books and journals, Internet searches and discussions with established compost businesses such as Jeffries and Peats Soils. They also engaged in trials with a SA Government supported organization called ‘Zero Waste’ and the Bioremediation experts at Flinders University. These trials were very positive and set them on the path to producing quality compost made to the Australian Standard.

Piggery waste is a very valuable organic input into soils and composting solves a potentially expensive waste disposal problem for pig producers. There are several examples of piggery-waste compost in the Australian market. The “Zero Waste” trials proved to be an important step towards increasing compost production and quality, as piggery waste presents some well-recognised production problems for compost makers. Pig effluent is rich in copper and zinc, and often has high salt levels. While the process of composting is reasonably simple and well understood, the specifics of the recipe required some thought and investigation, to mitigate potential problems arising from the metal and salt content of piggery effluent. Indeed, the recipe continues to change, in response to ongoing product analysis and results from soil application of the finished product, access to ingredients and feedback from customers concerning their specific requirements.

The composting site was originally established because the effluent dams at the piggery were not working well. The main problem was that the effluent in the clay-lined dams crusted over on the surface. Despite the high annual evaporation rate at the site, the crust limited the evaporation of the liquid fraction. This situation reached a point where either additional effluent dams had to be constructed, or an alternative solution had to be pursued. Heidi’s father originally considered several options, including vermiculture.

Local horticulture in the Riverland region of SA includes annual vegetable production, greenhouse production, viticulture and orchards (principally citrus but also stone fruit, pome fruit and almonds). Despite the presence of a potential local market, David and Heidi have found the product can be difficult to sell at times, as they are competing against cheap manure from feedlots. While organic growers do realise the superior nature of a composted product, David says that, “a lot of potential customers seem to perceive our compost as being manure at twice the price.” He says, “Those growers that do realise the difference between manures and compost, are generally long-term customers of the bigger compost manufacturers.” Despite these hurdles, Kaloranoo was sold out of compost last winter for the first time.

Kaloranoo relies mainly upon word of mouth referrals to customers, and does very little direct advertising. They have not yet achieved maximum production, and the last season was difficult, given that local growers had severe water restrictions (16% of their normal allocation) arising from the drought. Under these conditions, most growers were not making major capital purchases. Sales of compost to home gardeners have improved during the drought, as people struggle to maintain their home gardens under water restrictions. David says, “Drought awareness from back-yard gardeners has replaced some of our horticultural sales. At present these customers collect their compost from us in trailers or utilities, but we will be investigating this market further, including home deliveries and establishing a bagging plant. We’re looking at bagging our compost more seriously now that we have had our compost registered as an ‘Allowed Input’ with Australian Certified Organic and we can use their logo on our labelling.”

The current ingredients for their compost include pig manure solids and effluent water. David says, “This includes pen wash down water and some waste feed and water.” The feedstocks also include grape marc and stalks, straw baled on the farm, a small quantity of wood chips used for flavouring wine, and half a million litres of pasteurised distillery waste, which is used as replacement for water for maintaining moisture levels in the compost windrows. The distillery waste was one of the waste streams that the “Zero Waste” trials focussed on.

Other horticultural waste is available within the region, especially almond hulls, citrus peel and some vegetable waste, however competition for these waste streams will remain very high until the drought is completely over. It is surprising that even low value feed such as almond hulls is now highly sought after by livestock producers, although these things are usually only used for feed bulking.

Local people understand the value and use of grape marc, because it has always been widely used as mulch in the Riverland. The marc remains recognisable in Kaloranoo’s finished product, although the individual seeds have lost their substance and can be readily crushed between your fingernails. Selling the product outside of the region may be more difficult, as users may object to the visibility of the remaining grape seeds. David and Heidi will therefore consider reducing or eliminating the grape marc content for specific batches when they start bagging compost for garden use, as it is possible that this product may travel outside the region to market.

David and Heidi are also using their own compost on their date palms at Halidon. The planting material for the trial plantings was sourced from Dave & Anita Reilly of Gurra Downs, who are local certified organic grape and date producers. David says, “We’ve been told that date palms will really appreciate the high nutrient content of the compost, and will also benefit from the mulching effect it provides.” He continues, “Our local soils are generally nutrient deficient and also have very low levels of organic matter. Some batches of our compost can have specific nutrient levels that are a bit high for some applications, but this has been a minor issue, given the characteristics of the local soils.”

David says they do a lot of testing in order to check on the effect of changing recipes, and to understand how seasonal availability of ingredients affects the final product. This also helps them understand whether ingredients should be used as they are delivered, or stockpiled for use throughout the year. It also means they can provide a customer with an “up-to-date” analysis, relevant to the stockpile from which current deliveries are drawn.

The price of Kaloranoo’s compost has not risen in four years, and is around $22 per cubic metre or $44 per tonne. David told Acres, “People do compare us with cheaper inputs, which isn’t really fair. There are always cheaper alternatives available like manures, but if they haven’t been fully composted then they can’t be compared with compost. We just have to take it on the chin, and rely on the quality of our compost to sell itself.”

David says the minimum time raw materials spend composting in a windrow before sale to customers is four months, and the maximum time is about eight months. The time varies because of the availability of feedstocks, according to production cycles of the various industries that contribute material, and seasonal variation in demand from customers. Current production is around 2,000 tonnes, with capacity to eventually double that level of production.

Green waste from local councils is another potential feedstock, but David says they have not actively pursued this since doing some early trials. This is mainly due to contamination issues and local councils not being prepared to foot the bill to transport the green waste to the composting facility. It is rumoured that one of the Riverland councils is looking at establishing their own green waste collection and composting business. David says that a common problem for regional composters can be sourcing feedstocks at little or no cost. He says “There are still options for people to deal with green waste in the Riverland that cost them little or nothing, like burning or dumping in a paddock, so it’s not common for us to get feedstocks at no cost to us. It’s even less common for us to be able to charge people for taking their green waste – they usually have cheaper options.”

Currently David and Heidi do everything within the business. They source ingredients, mix and turn the windrows, make sales and deliveries, and conduct all monitoring and sample collection, and manage EPA and other bureaucratic requirements. They have a very ‘hands-on’ business, and they like it that way.

David says that dealing with the EPA has at times been difficult and time consuming, but they are finally getting their message through. He says, “The really frustrating thing was their lack of acknowledgement of our rural setting and the environmental characteristics of our site, despite all of this being detailed in our development plans. For instance, they were very focussed on potential groundwater impacts and off site impacts, without ever having visited the site. When we finally had an inspection, they realised we are in a 250mm rainfall area, with high evaporation rates and a deep and highly saline watertable and the site was surrounded by cropping and grazing land.” Nevertheless, David says that the effort that they have invested in fostering a good relationship with the EPA has been worth it.

The compost windrows are laid out with the base ingredients; chiefly bales of straw and grape stalks and marc. The liquid pig effluent is then pumped out on the windrows by a vacuum tanker twice weekly and the windrows are turned regularly with a tow-behind over-the-top compost turner that waters the windrows as required during turning. The compost turner was made by a local mechanic, who is a friend of Heidi’s father.

You can read more about another local expert compost maker the Mallee Fowl in my article under On Farm - Composting.