CANNON FALLS, Minn. — What began as a Minnesota farm family looking to turn poultry waste into a fertilizer good for plants and the environment has turned into a company that ships its products nationwide and to 60 different countries in the world. 

Cannon Falls-based

Sustane Natural Fertilizer

was one of 12 fertilizer plant projects that was

announced last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is investing $83 million to enhance domestic fertilizer supply.

The family-owned company plans to use a $2,397,792 grant to enhance and expand its current facility and purchase new equipment to increase production. 

USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development Basil Gooden and Colleen Landkamer, Minnesota’s director of USDA Rural Development, were in Cannon Falls on Thursday, May 30, to hear from Sustane’s founder, CEO and president Craig Holden and other company leaders. 

Gooden said fertilizer prices have almost doubled since the pandemic.

“The Biden-Harris administration is focused on this supply chain for fertilizer, and reducing the costs and making fertilizer more available,” he said. “(USDA) really wanted to make that significant investment in fertilizer companies.”

The investment in Sustane, which specializes in products that can be used on certified-organic operations, also has an environmental impact, Gooden said. 

“It’s a win-win,” he said. “I’m really just delighted that we were able to come here to learn more and to see it, and to show our support for such initiatives as well.”

A turkey farmer at the time, Craig Holden came up with the idea for the company in the 1980s when he was looking for a solution to having an excess of manure on the farm. 

“That’s me, 39 years and 39 pounds ago,” Holden told Gooden and Landkamer, pointing to his face on the cover of a farm magazine for regenerative agriculture in 1985. “A local agronomist suggested that we donate the manure and give the manure away to crop farmers that could benefit from the nutrients. But we literally could not give manure away. Crop farmers didn’t want it.”

Holden said he’d “never forget the look on the face” of the crop farmer across the road from him, who refused to take manure from his farm. Instead, he found ways like anaerobic composting to store manure safely to prevent disease transmission to flocks, but Holden said the costs were adding up. 

“Even though we were able to get rid of it, at about 25 bucks a ton in those days, all of our income was consumed by transportation because we were handling this wet, humus, nutrient-rich product and transporting it only about 10 or 15 miles,” he said. 

Blaize Holden, vice president of operations for Sustane, said that was when the family began to research the agronomic benefits of composted turkey litter. 

“So we began dehydrating it and granulating it, and bagging it,” Holden said. “Now we ship it to over 60 countries around the world.”

Today, around 40 poultry farms in Minnesota and western Wisconsin contribute to the company’s products. 

Sustane is currently the only manure-based fertilizer that’s permitted to ship to Europe, Blaize Holden said, and the only U.S.-based organic fertilizer that’s permitted to ship to China. The company has around 50% of its customer base inside the U.S., with the other half international. 

The company’s products are sold to a diverse range of customer populations from home gardeners to large-scale organic farms, and is used on areas to regrow grass and reclaim damaged or depleted soils.

“We service agriculture, but we also service professional lawn and landscape, nursery and greenhouse, erosion control,” Holden said. “It’s a very high-quality, organic, sustainable product with low odor, low dust, so easy to handle.”

Holden said that products from Sustane Natural Fertilizer are used at exclusive properties, including the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Disney facilities, PGA Tour golf courses, and Premier League, MLB and NFL fields. 

The USDA project funding will allow the company, which has been pushing against its capacity for several years, to expand 

“We’re looking to increase fertilizer production capacity here in Cannon Falls, and we’re also building a second facility on-site for our seed treatment production,” Blaize Holden said. “We have developed markets all over the world, so we’re looking to be able to supply those better.”