Saturday, November 10, 2007

Should we actually expect farmers to RSVP?

I was pleasantly surprised on Thursday when a dairy farmer called to confirm he would be attending our county-wide Farm Power lunch. See, we've visited 23 different families representing the vast majority of Skagit County's cows but figured we wouldn't know how many would show up until the food was actually served. Based on the responses we've been getting in person, we expect a good crowd--the word is out and the farmers want to hear more. Another guy--who I've never met and whose father didn't sound too enthusiastic--left an RSVP message this morning! After the end of harvest and manure-spreading season, the dairymen have a little more time and may be able to actually plan their schedules now.

We've also made progress getting quality attention from Andgar, the only real digester builder in the region. We brought potential investors up to visit their Lynden project and showed the engineers we've been dealing with that we actually can bring the necessary players to the table. Andgar will be presenting at the farmer lunch too, although we expect to focus primarily on our ability to help farmers with cow bedding (from digested fiber separated out after manure processing) and fertilizer (through increasing both total and inorganic nitrogen in the manure we return to them).

We'll have a little break around Thanksgiving, but for now we have a very exciting week ahead of us--lots of important interactions and decisions. We hope to have more good news to put here soon!