At Goodvalley, sustainability is at the core of how we farm. On our lands in Poland and Ukraine, we grow quality grains to supply our own feed mills, ensuring full control over the feed our animals receive. We return natural nutrients to the soil by using organic fertilizer from our biogas process, reducing the need for synthetic alternatives. Animal welfare is equally important — our farming practices are designed to ensure healthy, stress-free living conditions that support the well-being of our animals.
In Goodvalley we operate 31,400 hectares of land in Poland and Ukraine on rich soils that provide grain for the feed production in our feed mills. We use de-gassed pig manure from our biogas plants as an organic fertilizer on the fields thereby using less fossil-fuel produced fertilizer.
Our main crops are wheat, triticale, rapeseed, rye, soy and maize. We use modern farming techniques such as GPS systems that track the fields we have treated. This reduces the use of fertilizers and consequently also reduces our environmental impact. Crops grown at Goodvalley are used for feed, while crop waste is used in our biogas plants.
Currently, we have two feed mills across our Polish and Ukrainian operations. The mix and quality of the feed we produce are kept under constant internal control and we even have our own lab to test and ensure the highest quality – because healthy animals start with good feed.
Our feed recipes are developed by specialists, who closely observe each stage of production. The production plant operates according to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP).
In Goodvalley, we believe that animal welfare and high-quality food go hand in hand, and we take pride in treating our animals with care and respect.
To ensure that our animal welfare initiatives are continually maintained and improved, we consistently educate and train our employees to take proper care of our pigs and we have strict biosecurity management practices in place, including thoroughly monitoring transportation of feed and animals.
Our work focuses on further developing and expanding our unique production model that centres around sustainable food production. Key to this strategy is the production of green heat and electricity from our biogas plants.
In Goodvalley, biogas serves a number of purposes; we use the heat to warm our farms, the electricity for power and we sell any excess to the public grid in surrounding villages. We store the fermented biomass in a digestion tank and use it later to fertilize our fields, where we grow crops for our animals to eat. This is how we create our field to fork business model.
Our first biogas plant commenced operation in Poland in 2005. Today, we have nine biogas facilities that produce enough green heat and electricity to run the equivalent of around 13 000 households on a yearly basis – and we have three more biogas plants on the way together with external partners.
