Chicken farmer honored as environmental steward in Delaware

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When it comes to environmental stewardship, the poultry industry in southern Delaware seldom receives accolades.

But it would be a mistake to suggest that the entire Delaware poultry industry is lackadaisical about its impact on the environment. 

One of those clear exceptions is Terry Baker Jr., a Millsboro farmer who raises chickens for Mountaire Farms.

And it is that dedication to protecting the environment that earned Baker’s Acres Farm the 2018 “Family Farm Environmental Excellence Award” from the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association.

The association said the Baker farm in Millsboro was one of six nationwide to be recognized “for exemplary environmental stewardship by family farmers."

“It is our responsibility as farmers to be good stewards” of the environment, said Baker.

It was a commitment borne of personal experience.

Shortly after the family started raising chickens in 2007, an incident on the farm convinced Baker that a poultry farm had the potential to inflict serious environmental damage.

When Baker and his wife, Mena, bought the small farm in 2007, four chickenhouses were included in the transaction.

The Bakers immediately started raising birds under contract with Mountaire.

Three years later, a nasty blizzard walloped the region, forcing them into a hasty expansion.

Baker said the 2010 winter storm dropped so much wet snow that the roof on one of the chickenhouses collapsed. When it happened, the Bakers lost 20,000 chickens, a predicament that put them in serious financial jeopardy.

Facing financial ruin, the Bakers decided to take a risk by borrowing enough money to build two new chickenhouses. The expansion allowed them to raise 137,000 chickens simultaneously, considerably more than before.

Baker, a graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, was employed by Mountaire when they bought the farm.

Though many Delmarva farmers raise smaller 6-pound broilers for Mountaire, Perdue, Allen Harim and other poultry producers, Baker specializes in 9-pound birds that arrive as chicks and reach maturity eight or nine weeks later.

After raising chickens as a sideline, Baker, son of a poultry industry executive, decided in 2014 to leave his corporate job at Mountaire and focus on farming.

“It allowed me to spend more time with my family,” said Baker, who has four school-aged children.

Baker said he first thought about the environmental impact of his poultry operation as they were cleaning up after the chickenhouse collapsed.

The birds were euthanized and the chickenhouse was demolished by heavy equipment and hauled away, leaving behind tons of manure and trash.

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“The mess that was left over was unbelievable,” Baker recalled.

Nearby, drainage ditches captured the melting snow — and the foul smelling effluent from the chicken manure.

“My ditches looked like they were filled with coffee grounds,” he said.

With that incident, Baker became aware of the impact his business was having on the environment.

“I thought, we live here and this mess was right near my house,” he said.

Thus began Baker’s quest to minimize the impact of his poultry farm on his neighbors and the environment.

Now, between flocks, litter is removed from five chickenhouses and hauled away by a broker to be recycled.

Baker installed concrete pads at the entrance to each chickenhouse, which means that cleanup of spilled litter can be done with a tractor and bucket, “preventing it from being washed into ditches during a rain event,” he said.

Nutrient-laden manure runoff from farms is considered a major source of water quality degradation in the nearby Chesapeake Bay.

To further reduce runoff, Baker built sheds for manure storage and created landscaped buffer zones between buildings.

The farm also has a pond that collects rainwater runoff.

“The Baker family’s positive impact on the environment, however, is not limited to their farm,” the association said.

The association was alluding to a revelation about dead chicken disposal that led to some significant, environmentally friendly options — and a side business for Baker and his business partner, Victor Clark.

Mortality is a way of life for poultry farmers, including Baker, who raises 135,000 birds at once.

“If you have 135,000 of anything in one place, some are going to get sick and die,” Baker said.

For decades, the accepted disposal method was to mix chicken carcasses with manure to create a foul, stinky compost.

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But the compost piles, in addition to generating an unpleasant stench, are attractive to wildlife, including buzzards, vultures, foxes and raccoons. And those critters can be carriers of avian influenza (AI), a virus that has killed millions of chickens and turkeys since it was first detected the U.S. in 2014.

After years of research, Baker decided to adopt a practice that was used elsewhere — but not on Delmarva.

And that involved freezing — not composting — the chicken carcasses.

After testing the feasibility of the technology, Baker invested in enough freezers to handle all the carcasses on his farm. The dead birds are frozen and preserved until they are transported to a rendering plant in nearby Cambridge, Maryland.

It did not take long for Baker to realize the positive environmental impact of freezing dead birds.

Baker and Clark eventually formed Greener Solutions, a firm devoted to the promotion and sale of the freezer technology.

“The (dead) birds — and any pathogens they are harboring — are locked away from scavengers and insects inside an airtight box,” Baker said. The scavengers included buzzards, foxes and raccoons.

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“All these animals are capable of transmitting various pathogens,” Baker said.

And the impact of that improved system of carcass disposal was cited as a factor when Baker was awarded the recognition by the poultry industry.

 “On our family farm, we believe in promoting environmental stewardship,” Baker said.