For one farmer, the answer is blowin’ in wind

The farmer’s use of ‘green’ practices has impressed the governor.

BROOKVILLE, Ohio (AP) — When he was laid up in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, farmer Ralph Dull picked up a thick notebook dropped off by a friend that detailed how wind generators are being used to produce electricity.

“I had plenty of time to read it,” Dull recalled. “And I said, ‘That’s something we could do.”’

The 79-year-old Dull has since become an Ohio pioneer in green farming and renewable energy, jumping into it with both feet in hopes of increasing energy efficiency, cutting costs and protecting the environment. Dull’s practices have drawn visitors that include Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Ohio Agriculture Director Robert Boggs.

There are six wind generators on his 2,800-acre farm in western Ohio. In one building sits a machine that produces hydrogen, a clean fuel made from electricity and water that Dull hopes will soon replace the gasoline in his cars and forklifts and supplant the propane to heat his pig barn.

Dull’s office is geothermal heated and cooled, he dries his seed corn by burning reject corn instead of propane, and he grinds corn cobs to sell as horse bedding and mulch.

Strickland came away impressed by the farm and what it could mean for agriculture’s role in environmental protection.

“He is demonstrating through his farming practices that you can have a profitable farming operation while caring for the Earth,” Strickland said.

The governor and GOP legislative leaders want the state to rely more on alternative energy and are pushing a stimulus package that would earmark $150 million for advanced energy sources such as solar, wind and clean coal.

Experts say that while Dull is still the exception, more farmers are expressing interest in green farming and in using renewable energy sources. Beyond environmental concerns, cost-conscious farmers are seeing economic benefits as fuel and fuel-based fertilizer prices soar.

Challenges include the uncertainty of whether the investment in wind generators would pay for itself, whether there would be a market for hydrogen and interest among neighboring farmers in sharing the expense and labor, and whether there would be an adequate supply of reject corn to fuel the dryers.