Forever Feed Technologies (FFT) has announced an investment coalition of 15 leading dairy and beef producers from California, Texas, Indiana and Michigan to accelerate the technology development and complete the world's largest enterprise scale on-farm feed mill growing highly nutritious Automated Sprouted Grain (ASG).
As future installations of the technology are complete, the group said it envisions saving billions of gallons of water and significantly reducing the climate impact from feeding cattle. The first FFT Feed Mill is currently under construction at the River Ranch Dairy in Hanford, California.
"We are extremely pleased with the caliber of our second-round investment coalition," said Jack de Jong, owner of River Ranch Farms and cofounder/CEO of Forever Feed Technologies. "Our investors are some of the leading producers and businesses in agriculture and represent the forward-thinking innovators needed to help solve the major challenges of water shortages and the climate impact facing our industry."
Steve Shehadey, owner of Bar 20 Dairy and one of the founders of FFT, said he is excited to be joined by this esteemed group of innovative ag leaders.
"We have great trust in the experience of Forever Feed's cofounders, Jack de Jong and Steve Lindsley, and their management and engineering teams," said Shehadey. "At Bar-20, we are always looking to reduce our environmental impact and adding FFT feed mills to our operation will complement our sustainability efforts, including the methane reduction fuel cell technology we installed last year."
Automated Sprouted Grain available by year's end
The Forever Feed Mill is an enterprise scale system that grows Automated Sprouted Grain (ASG) year-round, such as wheat and barley, to enrich the animal's daily diet. The benefits to both farmers and animals are increased productivity, improved animal health, nutritional consistency, plus significant resource savings of water, land, and fuel emissions, said FFT.
The first Forever Feed Mill is being built at the River Ranch Dairy in Hanford, California, and is anticipated to begin growing Automated Sprouted Grain (ASG) by the fourth quarter of this year.
"The dairy and beef industries share many of the same opportunities for improving the quality and sustainability of the foods they produce," said Brian Coelho, president/CEO of the Central Valley Meat Company and Harris Ranch Beef. "Having both dairy and beef operators join the Forever Feed investment coalition expands FFT's ability to tap into our expertise as they develop the most dependable and sustainable high-volume feed mill in the world."
The Forever Feed coalition includes: River Ranch Farms, Hanford, California; Bar 20 Dairy, Fresno, California; Producers Dairy Foods, Fresno, California, Grimmius Cattle, Hanford, California; Wreden Ranch, Hanford, California; Hollandia Farms, Hanford, California; Central Valley Meat Company & Harris Ranch Beef, Hanford, California; Rancho Teresita Dairy, Tulare, California; Associated Feed & Supply, Turlock, California, Red Triangle Oil Company, Fresno, California; High Roller Dairy, Hanford, California; D&J Dairies, Hereford, Texas; de Jong Family Farms, Franceville, Indiana; Prairie View Dairy, Delton, Michigan; M.F. Rosa Dairy, Hanford, California. These coalition members consistently lead the charge to deploy innovative technology and climate-smart practices and together they feed over 500,000 head of cattle every year.
