The ‘Biogas’ Plot: Fueling Factory Farms in the Midwest

Executive Summary

One of the most sophisticated greenwashing and corporate welfare schemes ever designed, “manure biogas,” is providing Big Ag cover to use public dollars to fund an expansion of factory farms in the Midwest. The first thing to know about “biogas” is that the term itself is misleading. “Biogas,” also sometimes called “renewable natural gas” or “RNG,” refers to the use of methane digesters (also known as anaerobic digesters) to capture gas emanating from the cesspools of waste that concentrate on factory farms. These digesters process some portion of the waste from factory-farmed animals into fuel while also producing a polluting byproduct called digestate. “Manure biogas” is more accurately described as factory farm gas, or FFG for short.

Industry has touted its use of FFG as a climate solution, but an investigation by Farm Forward released in parallel with this one documents that FFG functions as a net negative by incentivizing the expansion of factory farming and entrenching current factory farms and their worst practices. This Farm Forward report demonstrates how Big Ag is effectively bringing its waste problem to the Midwest by confusing legislators and the public with lofty talk of “biogas” or, as it is alternatively branded, “renewable natural gas” or “RNG.”

With industrial dairy at the helm, a coalition of utility and fossil fuel companies are making plans to entrench and expand factory farming’s most destructive practices: mass confinement of animals and manure cesspools. At the center of this plan is FFG, which industry plans to promote by a combination of deregulating digesters and manipulating clean fuel standards. Industry has already introduced legislation in Michigan to deregulate anaerobic digesters and their waste byproducts, and to establish a new “clean fuels standard,” a credit trading scheme for polluters.

Michiganders are increasingly waking up to the industry’s plans, and concerned citizens are resisting and opposing the growth of CAFOs in their states.1 However, industry misinformation has led to considerable confusion about FFG, even among policymakers and some environmentalists. This report demonstrates that FFG is a clear case of egregious greenwashing. FFG threatens a massive misappropriation of public funds to expand a polluting industry deeper into America’s heartland.