Success Stories:
Partnerships in Environmental Sustainability

Clean Waters Initiative

The Perdue Clean Waters Environmental Initiative is an industry-leading cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regions 3 and 4 designed to help independent contract poultry producers growing for Perdue protect our nation’s waters. The program is an expansion of Perdue’s groundbreaking Clean Bays Environmental Management Initiative, a pilot program on Delmarva that created a new model for how industry, agriculture and regulators can cooperate to promote compliance and protect our natural resources.

The Clean Waters initiative provides training, assistance and environmental assessments for poultry producers to enhance the compliance of their poultry operations with federal, state and local environmental regulations. In addition, Perdue processing facilities will each implement an Environmental Management System to reduce environmental impacts.

The initiative builds upon the successful "Clean Bays" pilot program conducted in 2007. Under that program, the EPA and Perdue provided training and assistance to the largest independent contract poultry farms growing for Perdue throughout the Delmarva Peninsula. Under the "Clean Waters" agreement, Perdue will use results of the pilot to launch a company-wide environmental management program over four years for all contract poultry farms growing for Perdue. By the end of the four-year implementation, approximately 1,650 producers in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia – as well as all Perdue processing operations – will be included in the initiative.

 

Perdue AgriRecycle

Perdue AgriRecycle is the industry’s first large scale alternative to land application of poultry litter.

The plant, which represents a $13 million investment in protecting the environment, processes surplus poultry litter from Delmarva farms into pasteurized, organic fertilizer products. Perdue AgriRecycle provides free poultry house clean-outs to producers who have surplus litter, and the program is open to producers regardless of their company affiliation.

While poultry litter remains a valuable resource for many producers as a natural alternative to chemical fertilizers, Perdue AgriRecycle provides an environmentally friendly alternative for those producers who do not have the acreage for traditional land application or whose fields do not need the nutrients in poultry litter.

The finished product is an Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) certified organic fertilizer used in horticulture, landscaping, organic crop production and as a key ingredient in popular organic lawn and garden products. Perdue AgriRecycle also participates in litter transport programs, relocating raw litter to farmers who can appropriately utilize the nutrients. More than half the nutrients recycled are removed from the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

In 2008, Perdue AgriRecycle will relocate an estimated 4 million pounds of nitrogen, 2 million pounds of phosphorus and 3 million pounds of potassium.

 

P.I.N.E. Partnership

In 2001, Perdue approached the Delaware Center for Inland Bays (a private, non-profit National Estuary Program) and proposed a “model watershed” concept for the Little Assawoman Bay that would include cooperative efforts to accelerate compliance with Delaware’s Nutrient Management regulations.

The proposal developed into the P.I.N.E. (Poultry Integrators Nutrient Effort) Partnership, which includes the poultry industry, the Center for Inland Bays, the Delaware Nutrient Management Program, the Sussex Conservation District, the Delaware Non-point Source Program and the University of Delaware.

The P.I.N.E. Partnership includes environmental surveys of poultry farms within the watershed and the development of nutrient management planning and best management practices for the Little Assawoman Bay Watershed.

Most recently, as part of the P.I.N.E. partnership, Perdue helped create a model farm that incorporates technology and best practices to reduce environmental impact and is more “neighbor-friendly.”