Ben Beerens: 'Engineering provides fastest solution for nitrogen'

Breeder Ben Beerens reduces 7,000 kilos of nitrogen per year in one house with 18,500 broiler parent animals with an innovative air treatment system. Nitrogen reduction is achieved faster than buying up. The technique is ready, the waiting is for approval.'

For more than a year, the innovative air treatment system has been running at propagator Ben Beerens in Hoogeloon, Brabant. The annual reduction of 7,000 kilos of nitrogen is already sufficient to build almost three thousand homes.

Beerens: 'We reduce nitrogen emissions by an average of 90 percent. The emissions are continuously measured in real time. Measuring is knowing. We would like to, but the government is not yet willing to cooperate with these solutions. The current legal testing protocols do not allow this.'

 

Increasingly demanding

Poultry farmers must meet more and more environmental requirements, such as emissions of ammonia and particulate matter. Province of North Brabant is leading the way with hefty requirements. It takes so much energy to resist. I get more energy from making plans. If you get going, you automatically become more positive' says the propagator from Brabant.

Beerens keeps regular broiler parent animals. The hatching eggs go mainly abroad. 'Regular broiler parent animals are the most efficient animals with the lowest CO2 footprint per kilogram of meat. That feels like the best way for me as an entrepreneur. Dutch hatching eggs are sought after as high quality starting material. I find the export market a nice challenge with more freedoms', explains the entrepreneur.

 

Energy neutral

Due to the solar panels, Greenfarm is already energy neutral. For the environmental challenge, Beerens went to work with the Vencomatic Group for a practical heat exchanger that also reduces ammonia and particulate matter emissions: the ECO Air Care system. The results of the first system worldwide are promising. Nitrogen emissions have been reduced by an average of 90 percent, with peaks of up to 98 percent. The goal was 80 percent ammonia and particulate matter reduction, a fresh climate, heating and cooling in one unit.

'The system is practical and it works. I think that's important. I now have much less to worry about in terms of climate. The climate is perfect and the emissions are much lower', says the 43-year-old propagator enthusiastically.

 

Natural area

'We are the neighbor of a nature reserve. With our broiler parent animals we naturally emit nitrogen and particulate matter. We want and have to reduce that' says the entrepreneur from Brabant.

The Vencomatic Group has experiences with the ECO-Zero system that combines the properties of an air scrubber and a heat exchanger. The system has been in use in laying hens since 2018. 'The units take care of cleaning the outgoing air and conditioning the incoming air', explains Victor van Wagenberg, product manager at the Vencomatic Group. In other words, the units ensure that the stables remain warm in winter and cool in summer.

 

Optimal stable climate

In addition to maintaining an optimal barn climate, the units provide an 80 percent particulate matter emission reduction.

Together with Beerens the system was further developed into an innovative air treatment system, the Air Care system. It has been running for a year and a half in a barn on Beerens' farm. It works better than expected: cooling in summer and heating in winter provide a perfect stable climate and the reduction is more than the expected 80 percent: an average of 90 percent less nitrogen.