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Dairy St r Milk Break
Volume 26, No. 22
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“All dairy, all the time”™
January 11, 2025
Harvesting From the ground up natural gas Herzogs build, Dairies pair with Novilla RNG to power city of Sioux Center By Emily Breth
emily.b@star-pub.com
MAURICE, Iowa — After two years of planning and construction, the West Branch project of Novilla RNG LLC has two renewable natural gas digesters in operation and is now injecting RNG into the city of Sioux Center’s lines. The digesters receive manure from four dairy farms. The rst is Maassen dairy, a 2,000-cow dairy operated by Aaron Maassen and partners, Adam, Stefan and Lee Maassen, Aaron Maassen near Maurice. Dairy farmer The other three sites are operated by the Hoogland family. Two of the Hoogland dairies are located near Orange City and one is located near Maurice. There are a total of 4,500 cows milked at the Hoogland family’s three sites. One digester is located on Maassen’s farm, which processes manure from his cows and one of the Hoogland farms. The other is located at one of the Hoogland dairies. “I’m just happy that we’ve gotten to this point and it’s operating and producing gas,” Maassen said. “That’s exciting. I give Novilla RNG a lot of credit for following through with it and how they’ve gone through the construction phase.” Digesters were originally used in water treatment plants. Dairies started utilizing digesters in the 1970s but became popular on dairies beginning in the 1990s. At rst the gas was used to run an engine to generate electricity. Now they have evolved into making puried renewable natural gas to power cities. Turn to MAASSEN | Page 6
milk in new barn By Sarah Middendorf sarah.m@star-pub.com
FREEPORT, Minn. — Dedication and a can-do attitude are common themes for the Herzog family. This was on display in November 2024 when the family began milking in a new barn they built mostly on their own. “This is like a dream,” Diane Herzog said. She and her husband, Allen, and their sons, Matt and Nick, milk 142 cows in a double-12 parallel parlor and house them in a freestall barn. The new freestall barn, which is split into two pens, has one feed lane.
MARK KLAPHAKE/DAIRY STAR
The Herzog family — Allen (from leŌ), Diane, Nick and MaƩ — gather Jan. 2 in their barn Turn to HERZOGS at Herzog’s dairy farm near Freeport, Minnesota. As of Jan. 1, MaƩ and Nick own all of | Page 2 the cows on the farm.
GraƟtude headlines commencement address Evers shares life lessons learned on the dairy at college graduation By Amy Kyllo
amy.k@star-pub.com
KELLOGG, Minn. — For Monica Evers, the Winona State University December 2024 student commencement speaker, the address was all about the biggest life lesson she has learned as a dairy farmer: gratitude. Evers is the daughter of Jerry and Tammy Evers. She is part of Evers Dairy, which milks around 2,600 cows near Kellogg. Evers, a 4.0 GPA student and the top graduate of her department, earned
her degree Dec. 13, 2024, with a double major in mathematics and secondary math education. Evers was a commuter student who took a full course load of 15-20 credits a semester while feeding calves every evening at the family farm. “Graduation was denitely one of the best days of my entire life,” Evers said. “Just being up there with how much work that I put in I thought, ‘This is nally paying off all of the hours that I spent in school on the farm at the same time.’” Turn to EVERS | Page 7 PHOTO COURTESY OF WINONA STATE UNIVERSITY
Monica Evers addresses the crowd Dec. 13, 2024, at the Winona State University commencement in Winona, Minnesota. Evers, who is a dairy farmer, was the student commencement speaker at her college graduaƟon.