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Using manure for fertilizer in the future – it won’t be easy
Using manure for fertilizer in the future – it won’t be easy
Animals produce 44 times more manure than humans in the U.S.
Preface. At John Jeavons Biointensive workshop back in 2003, I learned that phosphorous is limited and mostly being lost to oceans and other waterways after exiting sewage treatment plants. He said it can be dangerous to use human manure without proper handling, and wasn’t going to cover this at the workshop, but to keep it in mind for the future.
Modern fertilizers made with the Nobel-prizing winning method of using natural gas as feedstock and energy source can increase crop production up to 5 times, but at a tremendous cost of poor soil health and pollution (see Peak soil). Fossil fuels will inevitably decline some day, and force us back to organic agriculture and using crop wastes, animal and human manure again.
Below are excerpts from three sources.
The first is about North Korea. Despite tremendous efforts to use all manure, this country is a barren, destroyed landscape that can grow little food, which McKenna describes here: Inside North Korea’s Environmental Collapse.
The second section describes what it was like to live over a century ago when human and animal manure was routinely collected.
The third Below is a NewScientist book review of The Wastewater Gardener: Preserving the planet, one flush at a time by Mark Nelson.
Park, Y. 2015. In order to live: A North Korean girl’s journey to freedom. Penguin.
“One of the big problems in North Korea was a fertilizer shortage. When the economy collapsed in the 1990s, the Soviet Union stopped sending fertilizer to us and our own factories stopped producing it. Whatever was donated from other countries couldn’t get to the farms because the transportation system had also broken down. this led to crop failures that made the famine even worse.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Eat Less Meat and Save the Planet
Eat Less Meat and Save the Planet
Dr. D:
Eat less meat to save the planet – report (1)
The new diet that could save the planet (2)
What to eat to save the planet: Report urges ‘radical changes’ to world’s diet – less meat, more veggies (3)
These headlines, likely sourced from a recent article from “The Lancet” (4) are a regular feature of our time, in diet, in environmentalism, and in global warming. They are well-researched, sourced by the world’s experts, and put forward with the highest intentions. However, they are also completely wrong – dangerously, ignorantly wrong.
Like most industries, agriculture and food production is a specialty, with its own language and details. I don’t attempt to tell the Lancet how to perform heart surgery, for to do so would be ridiculous, dangerous, outside of my expertise. I wouldn’t tell a geologist how to interpret the magnetic layers of rock, or how oceanographers should properly interpret sea water samples to guide us on fishing or pollution. Yet this is what they do for farmers.
The primary drive of most such articles is that, with so many people, and so much hunger, we find that it takes “2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of feedlot beef.” that “64% of US cropland produces livestock feed.” (5) That it takes “20 pounds corn [to make] 1 pound beef.” (6) Or that you can get 15lbs of beef per acre, but 263lbs of soybeans. (7) Also that cattle are the primary reason for deforestation, and a major cause of methane.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Manure: An Overview of This Shi…ning Addition to the Garden
MANURE: AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SHI…NING ADDITION TO THE GARDEN
Organic gardens really benefit from manure, and that is no mystery. However, it’s important to be aware of what kind of manure is at your disposal because they are not all equally desirable. Some manures, dare we say, are choice garden additions, while others take a lot of coaxing, a slow and patient cook, from composting gurus. Chicken manure is vastly different from cow manure, which is largely different dog manure.
Understanding some of the subtleties of manure, even in the most basic of ways, can make a huge difference to how, when, and for what you are using a particular pile. For those of us who aren’t connoisseurs of manures, it’s important to get a grasp of which ones we’d most like to get our hands on (or in) and which ones aren’t necessarily best suited for growing our food but could be useful elsewhere. So, with no further puns, let us dive head first into the wonderful world of animal excrement.
MANURE IS MAGNIFICENT
Firstly, it seems useful to know why it is that manure is such a valuable commodity. In the garden, it does two things very well: amends the soil and fertilizes the plants. Dry, well-rotted manure is great for retaining water and very useful in sandy soils, whereas the same thing goes along way in lightening up dense clay soils. In either case, fast-draining or compacted soils, manure helps reduce runoff and nutrient leaching. As far as fertilizing, manure carries a good punch of nitrogen (The type of manure changes the levels) and other nutrients, both of which release it slowly (Again, the speed changes via type) to the plants. It’s also full of microbes, which up the amount of soil life, thus fertility, in the garden.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Human manure: Closing the nutrient loop
Human manure: Closing the nutrient loop
Using human urine and faeces as fertiliser may seem an unappetising concept but it’s been common practice for centuries. In the sewage systems of today, which deal with millions of tonnes of domestic waste and industrial effluent, this human fertiliser comes in the form of treatedsewage sludge.
Promoting a waste product that some consider hazardous as a resource to grow your food may seem like a paradox, but in Britain, a world leader in recycling sewage into agriculture, it is recognised by the government and the EU as the best environmental option. It diverts waste away from oceans and landfill and provides essential plant nutrients to the soil. Nevertheless, EU organic regulations don’t permit the use of sewage sludge on organic farms. So, what are their concerns? Is this form of manure safe for agriculture? Are we putting our health and our soils at risk when we spread human waste on land?
“1% of wastewater is waste. The rest is wasted water.”
Human urine and faecal matter are a rich source of essential plant nutrients. Historically, human excreta, ‘nightsoils’, were collected from towns and villages and spread in raw or composted form on fields in the surrounding farmland. This informal treatment is still practiced in some areas of China, South East Asia, Africa and Latin America, where municipal sewage works don’t exist or are poorly functioning. In the 1850s, Europe’s growing urban populations and the discovery of the link between raw sewage and cholera led to the implementation of large-scale sewage systems. These water-based systems combined all domestic waste, industrial effluent and road surface run-off. For the next century the resulting sewage sludge was disposed of in landfill and directly into the oceans.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
