Is Perdue's chicken manure recycling operation a fig leaf for the mountains of poultry waste its birds leave behind for the company's contract growers to take care of?

Or is it a start to toward dealing with the farm runoff on the Eastern Shore that is contributing to the Chesapeake Bay's woes?

A story I wrote for The Baltimore Sun about Perdue's manure recycling sidelight carried those opposing views.  The fig leaf charge, in so many words, came from an environmentalist suing the nation's third largest poultry company, trying to hold it legally responsible for water pollution the group claims came from a farm raising Cornish game hens under contract for Perdue.

The "it's a start" came from a farm pollution expert at the University of Maryland, who said it's a help but more will be needed. 

Some readers had a hard time understanding or dealing with the story.  A few questioned some of the facts, or the company's claim its fertilizer pellets are organic.  One reader didn't like the headline.  Just to recap: 

In nine years of operation, according to company officials, Perdue AgriRecycle has taken in 682,402 tons of "litter," a mixture of wood shavings and manure that is periodically cleaned out of chicken houses.  Up to a third of that gets sold "raw" to farmers who want to use it for fertilizer on their crops.  The company's "Micronutrient Facility," as the sign in front of the litter processing plant near Seaford, Del., reads, produces about 50,000 tons of pellets a year. 

About half get shipped to customers out of the six-state bay watershed.  So at least some of the nutrients in the manure are removed from any possibility of polluting the bay's waters.   And even those pellets sold inside the bay region may be less problematic for water quality, if they're used appropriately by homeowners or landscapers, notes Russ Brinsfield, head of the Harry Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology at the University of Maryland.

But the headline on the story may have called out for a qualification.  Fifty thousand tons of pellets a year pales when stacked up against the 600,000 to 800,000 tons of manure estimated to be produced annually by poultry raised on the Delmarva Peninsula - with half of it generated in Maryland, by experts' reckoning. 

That's why Kathy Phillips, the Assateague Coastkeeper, considers the litter recycling plant little more than "nice feel-good PR" for Perdue.  She wants the company to take responsibility for all the manure its birds generate while being raised under contract with growers across the Shore.

"The manure that it is handling and getting off the Shore is a good thing," she said, "and the rest of it is just a nice place to take the media to show they are trying to do the right thing." 

The company's AgriRecycle operation offers to clean out any grower's chicken house and haul away the waste for free.  Only about a fifth of Perdue's growers take the company up on that offer, though some who raise poultry for other companies use the service as well. 

But the company says it's had a hard time until recently finding profitable markets for the pellets, and that Shore farmers are reluctant to give up their manure because it's valuable as fertilizer.  With the market for its pellets still somewhat limited, Perdue's not willing to start paying farmers for their litter, it seems.  And farmers are unlikely to change as long as environmental regulations permit them to fertlize with poultry manure that may contain more phosphorus than their crops can use.

But those conditions may change in the not too distant future, as federal and state officials try to crank down on all sources of nutrient pollution fouling the bay.  Cutbacks in how much, where or even whether animal manure can be used to fertilize crops could prompt more farmers to want to get rid of it as inexpensively as possible.  And if alternate uses for the litter gain in popularity -- as organic fertilier or as fuel for a biomass power plant, say -- then farmers may have some more lucrative options.

Meanwhile, to those who wonder how Perdue can claim to be engaged in organic agriculture, I can understand how jarring it may seem to have one of the nation's top poultry producers wrapping itself in a mantle some envision only mom-and-pop farms should enjoy.  I wondered about that, too.  Given the questions that raised, I should have addressed it in the article.

Perdue's litter pellets have been certified organic by an independent outfit based in Oregon, the Organic Materials Review Institute. The company says it has stopped using Roxarsone, a chicken feed additive containing arsenic.  And it also says it doesn't use hormones, steroids or antibiotics to promote growth, though its website does note that young chicks are vaccinated against disease.

I realize that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's organic standards are controversial in some food circles, but that's the basis for the company's claim.

For what it's worth, company chairman Jim Perdue rejects suggestions his company is engaged in "factory farming."  He points to the "farm families" who raise his company's chickens under contract.  And he says the reason his company has gotten a foothold in the small but growing organic farming world is because it's able to produce a reliable supply of its pellets.

"The number one thing for any organic business is to have a steady supply of material," he said. "Most producers are small and unreliable ... We made this operation the size it is to be a reliable supplier."

(Baltimore Sun photos by Karl Merton Ferron)