By Hillary Gavan
For StatelineBusiness

BELOIT -- One family's environmental approach to farming hit the national news.

The Crave Brothers Farm recently was featured on "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" for their cheese farm and anaerobic digester. The Craves were born and raised in Beloit.

The episode was part of the "Making a Difference" series. The "Making a Difference" series was conceived in response to viewers who complain that the broadcast features only "bad" news, according to MSNBC's Web site.

Charles, George, Thomas and Mark Crave were raised on a 40-cow dairy farm near Beloit with their parents, Sara and Bob Crave. Their fifth brother, Paul Crave, is the owner of Crave Photography in Beloit.

Paul's four brothers, however, now operate a 600-cow dairy farm in Waterloo, Wis., and accompanying cheese factory on 1,700 acres of land.

The fresh milk is piped from the dairy across the road to the 6,000-square-foot cheese plant, where cheese makers use a combination of modern-day equipment and old world techniques to craft its award-winning Crave Brothers Farmstead Classic Cheeses including mascarpone, mozzarella and more.

"The goal is to use all the milk we use at the farm at our cheese factory," said Debbie Crave, wife of George Crave and fellow farmer. "It's important because it promotes the 'buy local' concept and getting close the product you are interested in buying. We know the animals and we care about the land we raise crops on."

Another unique feature of the farm is their anaerobic manure digester. It converts the manure from cows into electricity. The computer-controlled anaerobic digestion system generates enough electricity to run their rural Wisconsin farm and cheese plant and power up to 120 homes.

Anaerobic, or oxygen-free, digestion is a biological process in which microorganisms break down organic waste in a process that ultimately produces gas, mainly methane with some carbon dioxide. This gas can be burned just like natural gas, thus generating energy.  

When the Crave Brothers' system was installed in 2007, it was one of only a handful in Wisconsin. 

The anaerobic digester is owned and installed by Clear Horizons, a firm that specializes in organic waste management solutions and biogas energy systems, and is computer-controlled over the Internet from the company's office in Milwaukee. 

The digester helps manage the farm's manure, provides clean, renewable energy for the farm, and produces excess electricity, which Clear Horizons sells on the electrical grid. What's more, the digester reduces odor from the manure and provides some salable byproducts. The Craves use the liquid byproduct as fertilizer on their fields. Solid byproducts are used as animal bedding, and in a line of organic potting mixes.

Debbie Crave is the daughter of Gino and Pat Casucci and a graduate of Beloit Catholic High. She met her husband George Crave in high school at 4-H activities. She worked full time in marketing at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture for 17 years and spent three years at the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board before joining her husband at the cheese factory.