"GLOBALISATION CHEAPENS EVERYTHING."-- The True Cost of Cheap Food.

[wifezilla]

complaining about using manure???? I thought that was what we were suppose to use,

It's the amount crammed in to the smallest possible place that is the problem.

" most of the large farms dispose of manure the same way farmers disposed of it in the Middle Ages - by spreading it on fields as fertilizer. Only about 25 of the large farms use digesters or treatment systems.

Still, so great is the volume of manure that many factory farms do not own enough nearby land to adequately dispose of the waste and instead must haul it to distant fields owned by other farmers. Though farms are required to submit detailed spreading plans before receiving a permit, the plans deal mostly with the nutrient needs of a crop.

Laurie Fischer, executive director of the Dairy Business Association, said the manure is an important source of fertilizer and reduces the need to use petroleum-based chemical fertilizers. But in recent years, livestock manure from farms has become one of the most frequently found contaminants in rural wells. While smaller farms also spread manure on fields, the great volumes of waste produced by factory farms pose a growing threat to surface waters and private wells, conservationists say."

When you have a rotational grazing system and are growing more than one type of "crop", the manure is an ASSET. When you have a CAFO, the waste is overwhelming and it becomes a TOXIC LIABILITY. MONOCULTURE is the problem. POLYCULTURE is the solution.

"The fact that Salatin doesn't spray any pesticides or medicate his animals unless they are ill is, for him, not so much the goal of his farming as proof that he's doing it right. And "doing it right" for Salatin means simulating an ecosystem in all its diversity and interdependence, and allowing the species in it "to fully express their physiological distinctiveness." Which means that the cows, being herbivores, eat nothing but grass and move to fresh ground every day; and that chickens live in flocks of about 800, as they would in nature, and turkeys in groups of 100. And, as in nature, birds follow and clean up after the herbivoresfor in nature there is no "waste problem," since one species' waste becomes another's lunch. When a farmer observes these rules, he has no sanitation problems and none of the diseases that result from raising a single species in tight quarters and feeding it things evolution hasn't designed it to eat. All of which means he can skip the entire menu of heavy chemicals.

You might think every organic farm does this sort of thing as a matter of course, but in recent years the movement has grown into a full-fledged industry, and along the way the bigger players have adopted industrial methodsraising chickens in factory farms, feeding grain to cattle on feedlots, and falling back on monocultures of all kinds. "Industrial organic" might sound like an oxymoron, but it is a reality, and to Joel Salatin industrial anything is the enemy. He contends that the problems of modern agriculturefrom pollution to chemical dependence to foodborne illnessflow from an inherent conflict between, on one hand, an industrial mind-set based on specialization and simplification, and, on the other, the intrinsic nature of biological systems, whose health depends on diversity and complexity."
http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=45

You seem to intentionally want to miss the point. It must be hard to contort so much. Hope your back holds out.

 

[patandchickens]

omplaining about using manure???? I thought that was what we were suppose to use, now manure (english put lot less on our ground than amish) is a bad thing? Contaminates well water? What it does is stink up nearby housing. Please, you all discuss this and come back to us in Ag and tell us how to do it. Use manure or don't use manure, how much per acre, when can we spread it. Or is manure from a 20 sow herd safer than 20 sows from a herd of 1000?

Why keep setting up straw men like this? You presumably know perfectly well -- and if you don't, then my goodness you SHOULD -- that this whole subject is really pretty well understood and worked out, and people know DARN WELL what the problems and solutions are on this topic.

If you raise a jillion animals in confinement on a small plot of land, you end up with manure and water-contamination issues; if you spread the same number of animals over a whole lot of different farms, each sized to be able to constructively USE the amount of manure output they produce, then you end up with useful fertilizer.

It's just that you can't crank out beef or pork or chicken-meat quite as cheaply if you raise them on a less industrial scale, plus which the beef and pork and chicken-meat industries these days would like to keep things the way they are 'cuz its more profitable for their companies.

There is no mystery or contradiction here.

BTW, on a different topic, doesn't it bother anyone that there is so much reference to "what the Amish do" (and btw I think a lot of people are lumping the Amish and Mennonites together, which is not entirely the same thing in terms of what they do farming-wise or for a living), when it is not like all the Amish or Mennonite farmers in the world do things the same way. Not even in the US; not even in a particular state. There are some similarities, obviously, but "the" Amish...?

JMHO,

Pat

 

[wifezilla]

LOL...

Like they are some collective or something.

"Resistance is futile..."

 

[Rosalind]

BTW, on a different topic, doesn't it bother anyone that there is so much reference to "what the Amish do" (and btw I think a lot of people are lumping the Amish and Mennonites together, which is not entirely the same thing in terms of what they do farming-wise or for a living), when it is not like all the Amish or Mennonite farmers in the world do things the same way. Not even in the US; not even in a particular state. There are some similarities, obviously, but "the" Amish...?

YES. Especially those of us whose aunties, uncles and cousins happen to be a mix of Old Order Amish, Beachy, Mennonite and Brethren.

FYI, it's sort of like lumping Catholics, Russian Orthodox, Lutherans, Episcopalians and Unitarian Universalists all under the heading of "Christians". Technically it's sorta correct, but in practice they are not at all the same, and some of those people really don't get along at all.

 

[Beekissed]

This is an enlightening and interesting topic! You all are very informed and I learn something every time I come here. Now, Pat, you will know the answer to this question:

Doesn't the nitrogen in manure have to bind with carbon in order for the soil to utilize it/break it down? And, if manure is not composted previously to placing it on fields, is it this factor that causes nitrogen runoff into water systems?

I think that is why Salatin works to compost his cow manure all winter long, then uses his pigs to aerate it before spreading it back on his fields.

I don't know that it is necessarily the high volume of manure spread back on the fields in a commercial system that is the problem, but rather the raw nitrogen that has little carbonaceous material with which to bind in bare soil of the industrial fields.

One of the problems here seems to be to make a high profit and make it quickly. The "making it quickly" seems to be the reasons for CAFO-type operations.

I know the world has changed drastically and this is a whole new generation with its own problems, but sometimes one has to stand back, slow down and see what worked in the past and see if today's world can adjust. If it cannot happen immediately on a large scale, so be it. But we must at least try in our own small way to make a difference. I think this is what these types of forums are about~learning to make a difference, change the status quo, adapt to the changing world.

 

[Rosalind]

Beekissed:

It has to do with the soil microbes. Healthy topsoil has several hundred identified (i.e. many more unidentified and cataloged, probably) species of bacteria. Some of these convert urea and ammonia from animal waste into nitrites, some convert it to nitrates through their normal metabolic process, similar to how plants use CO2 to produce oxygen--it's just a byproduct of the way they make small carbon molecules into energy and bigger carbon molecules. The ammonia (and to a lesser extent, urea) in animal waste are toxic to humans, fish, most other types of soil bacteria, so these bacteria species that convert ammonia --> nitrite --> nitrates are performing a valuable service. The nitrates are what plants can use: the idea is, you have some amount of ammonia, and one microbe converts the ammonia to nitrite. Next microbe converts it to nitrate. Then plants can take the nitrates and use them to build nucleic acids, proteins and other nitrogen-containing biochemicals.

However, all critters need a carbon source. We're made mostly of carbon, not nitrogen. These bacteria are no exception, and they are not going to take up much nitrogen unless they have some carbon source to use up as well--the biochemical reactions simply will not go forward if there is an excess of one substrate and not enough of the other. They will only go until one part of the reaction is used up, and then stop. Without enough carbon to drive the process forward and keep the bacteria making fats, sugars, amino acids for themselves, the ammonia won't get converted.

Plus, even when you do provide the bacteria with carbon, they still can only work so fast. Their doubling rate is not as fast as other bacteria. They prefer to work in the dark and many species cannot tolerate any UV light.

But let's assume we have a big dark tank (e.g. septic tank) for the bacteria to live in. Even so, plants can only take some upper limit of nitrate and no more, before they have nutrient imbalances themselves: excess nitrate interferes with oxygen transfer (in humans too--babies born to farm families with high nitrates in the well water can suffer blue-baby syndrome) and can cause plants to "burn" from loss of oxygen transfer. When the nitrates have been diluted with fiber, as in bedding straw, wood chips or sawdust--the "browns" in composting--this is not a problem: the fluffy texture of the fibers can physically trap concentrated nitrate-containing liquid and keep it away from the water table and plant root hairs, and the amount of nitrate/volume is much less than it would be if it were all a liquid mess.

When poop leaves a critter, the bacterial population consists mainly of E. coli. Several other commensal organisms too, depending on what type of critter it may be and how many stomachs it has, but mostly E. coli. Converting this bacterial population to the nitrogen-processing species takes time, and then getting as much ammonia and urea converted into nitrate as possible takes time, and then aerating to balance the bacterial populations before spreading ensures that you get the maximum nutrients out of the manure without injuring plants or soil structure.

 

[wifezilla]

these bacteria species that convert ammonia --> nitrite --> nitrates are performing a valuable service.

Yup yup yup! These are bacteria you intentionally cultivated in aquariums and pond filters.

 

[Beekissed]

WOW! I just knew someone would come up with the answer...thank you! So....is Joel's method more conducive to good soil health then? Or would even his method not be feasible for the amount of manure produced in CAFO situations?

 

[Rosalind]

Well, by managing the manure in digestion tanks and using the methane as an energy source (which some smaller operations are now doing) you can remediate some of the manure problem in CAFOs, but the capital equipment investments required to deal with the amount in a commercial CAFO would be high enough that Tyson et al. most likely would not recoup the $$ as quick as they would like--they would have to price their products somewhat higher (or pay their executives less). Salatin's method doesn't take much capital equipment because he's dealing with smaller volumes and he keeps his cattle out in the pasture most of the year, so he doesn't have the same volumes a CAFO would. You need more equipment to deal with CAFO volumes, although this equipment exists and is scalable it's not cheap. It does pay for itself over a few years as the methane digestion produces energy that can be used to offset the building's energy use or fed back into the grid--but most executives only think about the next quarter, not the next five years. That's why small family-owned operations tend to implement these things when they can get grant $$ to do so.

In other words, it is technically possible but won't be implemented for economic reasons. It would likely only be implemented if a court order required it specifically--for example if a town suffering severe economic damages from a CAFO's poor waste management system sued the heck out of them and won, sort of thing. There are many such towns, but since mostly poor people live there, lawyers don't want to take on what would likely be a grueling decades-long case for minimal, not-guaranteed payout. Even so, you're not talking about a company actually willing to hire good engineers and maintain the system--in that case, a company Tyson's size would hire the most corrupt, cheapest kickbacking, Mafia-run contractor on earth and install the bare minimum of appearances of a digestion system.

Hence the significance of supporting small, local family-owned farms. Smaller amounts of manure spread over larger areas, and smaller amounts in the winter confinement pens, can be easily composted and managed with not-very-expensive equipment, and there is significant incentive for a small farm with community ties to do so--Farmer Joe can't pick his operations up and move somewhere with laxer pollution regulations, and he can't hold entire communities hostage by threatening massive job losses if he is held accountable. Small farms are still associated with premium quality, so Farmer Joe can charge more for his product and recoup his capital costs quickly, whereas Tyson et al. has to increase prices by a small amount and hope no one notices a few cents here and there--but after suffering the PR disaster of a lawsuit, they are likely to lose market share anyway.

 

[wifezilla]

in that case, a company Tyson's size would hire the most corrupt, cheapest kickbacking, Mafia-run contractor on earth and install the bare minimum of appearances of a digestion system

It's funny because it's true!

Hence the significance of supporting small, local family-owned farms. Smaller amounts of manure spread over larger areas, and smaller amounts in the winter confinement pens, can be easily composted and managed with not-very-expensive equipment, and there is significant incentive for a small farm with community ties to do so--Farmer Joe can't pick his operations up and move somewhere with laxer pollution regulations, and he can't hold entire communities hostage by threatening massive job losses if he is held accountable. Small farms are still associated with premium quality, so Farmer Joe can charge more for his product and recoup his capital costs quickly, whereas Tyson et al. has to increase prices by a small amount and hope no one notices a few cents here and there--but after suffering the PR disaster of a lawsuit, they are likely to lose market share anyway.