Mississippi Poultry Growers
Various locations
Energy Efficiency/Grain Drying
Section 9006 Grant: $3,000,000
for 86 projects – 2003-07
The success of Mississippi poultry producers in using Section 9006 awards to improve the energy efficiency of their broiler houses is a great example of teamwork and the ability to replicate a project across many individual producers with similar energy efficiency opportunities.
Poultry and egg production is the largest agricultural sector in the state, with 2,800 producers generating $2 billion in annual sales. Because most of the poultry producers are contract producers, one of their only controllable costs is energy—and propane costs for heating these poultry houses are high, even in Mississippi. Energy costs consume almost 20% of broiler producers’ gross revenue.
Mississippi State Poultry Science Department and the state poultry association held workshops to educate producers about the opportunities to save energy in their operations. The workshops identified the Section 9006 program as a key source of funding to help pay for these improvements. The Southwest Resource Conservation and Development Council then helped to prepare dozens of successful Section 9006 applications during the last four years.
Bennie Hutchins of Southwest RC&D said, “The need to be more energy efficient is especially critical for poultry producers that have older production houses. Most poultry producers with these older houses were already considering making energy efficiency improvements to remain competitive. The potential to offset up to 25% of the cost through a 9006 grant encouraged many of them to make the move.”
Mississippi Poultry Growers