Soils, Compost and Climate Change #2: From COP21 To Now
In part two of our climate talks episode, we're delving deeper into the main discussion points, the challenges, and the dangers we're facing right now in making agriculture and soil a key player in climate change strategies. By the end, we should have a decent overview of the situation and will be all set for COP22. We'll also be sharing insights from the International Compost Roundtable – a side event that took place during COP21, with speakers Enzo Favoino of Zero Waste Europe, climate change advisor Calla Rose Ostrander, and Teresa Anderson of Action Aid.
We discuss: the latest developments from the SBSTA, the issues with linking soil carbon sequestration with cutting emissions, the dangers of greenwashing, and how to support compost markets in a fair, sustainable way.
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An analysis of submissions to SBSTA 44 on agriculture and adaptation. CIFOR May 2016.
Lima Paris Action Agenda Official Website.
10 options for agriculture at Marrakech climate talks. CCAFS September 2016.
Soil Carbon Can't Fix Climate Change By Itself—But It Needs to Be Part of the Solution. Article. Union of Concerned Scientists USA. 2016.
EPISODE SLIDESHOW
Picture Attribution:
Forages in Tanzania: making trade-offs. By CIAT. Some Rights Reserved.
Forages in Rwanda. By CIAT. Some Rights Reserved.
Debre Berhan, central Ethiopia. By CIAT. Some Rights Reserved.
Hosana, Ethiopia. By CIAT. Some Rights Reserved.
Réunion inter-ministérielle COP22. By Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et de la Coopération. Some Rights Reserved.
Présentation de la feuille de route du Maroc pour la COP22. By Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et de la Coopération. Some Rights Reserved.
Transcript Coming Soon.
Tags: 4 Pour 1000 agroecology BECCS Biobin carbon sequestration climate change compost COP21 COP22 environment greenhouse gasses Paris Agreement soil health sustainability sustainable agriculture waste to energy zero waste Zero Waste Europe
In this two-part episode we discuss what role compost, soil, and agriculture played during the COP21 climate talks last year, and review what has been happening since, with COP22 just around the corner. We'll also be sharing insights from the International Compost Roundtable – a side event that took place during COP21, with speakers Enzo Favoino of Zero Waste Europe, climate change advisor Calla Rose Ostrander, and Teresa Anderson of Action Aid.
We cover the dangers of language and how it can lead to greenwashing and bad policy, challenges in measuring results with soil carbon sequestration, how the attention on soil & agriculture translated into action, how our policy frameworks need to change, and much more.
Ecomondo 2015, November 8th to 11th. Rimini Italy.
The largest technology platform for the Green and Circular Economy in the Euro-Mediterranean area – and for advanced and sustainable technology for processing and recycling all kinds of waste; treating and reclaiming water, waste water and polluted marine sites; efficient use and transformation of raw and processed materials and the promotion of renewable raw materials.
Disruptive Innovation Festival (DIF) 2016. November 7th to 25th. Online.
An online, open access event that invites thought-leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, businesses, makers and learners to explore the question "The economy is changing – what do I need to know, experience and do?". Using a mix of online and face to face events, participants have the opportunity to explore the economy through a different lens. Sessions demonstrate how people worldwide are challenging the current 'take, make and dispose' economic model.
INDC Assessment: The Land Sector and Country Commitments to Global Climate Action. Rainforest Alliance. 2015.
How countries plan to address agricultural adaptation and mitigation. CCAFS, CGIAR, 2015.
The Marin Carbon Project.
4 pour 1000 initiative.
Conferencia de la ONU sobre Cambio Climático COP21. Some Rights Reserved.
COP21 Protests-1420337 by Mark Dixon. Some Rights Reserved.
Civil Society helps COP21 Choose the right road to 1.5C degrees by Takver. Some Rights Reserved.
2DU Kenya 87. By CIAT. Some Rights Reserved.
Food security, Indonesia (10695853234).jpg. Josh Estey/AusAID. Some Rights Reserved.
Jonathan Cobb's farm with cover crops. By U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some Rights Reserved.
Time To Act Climate Change London Protesters Creative Commons. By David B Young. Some Rights Reserved.
Cobs of corn. By Asbestos.
Tags: 4 Pour 1000 agroecology BECCS Biobin carbon sequestration climate change Co2 compost COP21 COP22 deforestation environment green greenhouse gasses Paris Agreement soil health sustainability waste to energy zero waste Zero Waste Europe
[Retrospective] Vineyards Special #1: The Wonders of Cover Crops
While we will continue to make new episodes, there are times when we feel the urge to highlight a past episode – because the topic it covers becomes news and the show shares some great insights, or because it is content that our newer listeners might have missed out on. Since last year was the International Year of Soils, we will be republishing a few of our best episodes about soil and soil health to get a fresh perspective in light of all the progress that has been made on the issue.
To round-off the series, we're ending with a in-depth look at a popular and very effective sustainable agricultural technique: cover cropping. In episode 16 of our show, we had with us Bob Cannard and Bob Shaffer – both experienced sustainable farmers and horticulturalists. They shared their techniques with us, explained just how cover cropping works and how beneficial it can be, and gave us their expert advice. We learned a lot about cover crops in making this episode, and if you're wondering after the last two episodes, just what exactly the sustainable agricultural techniques might look like that we need to start pushing for – this is the episode for you.
Links to other episodes in the Series:
Photo by Robert Reed, courtesy of Recology.
Cover crops are becoming more and more popular, but they still aren't completely understood by everyone. Bob Canard, can you tell me what exactly cover crops are, and how do they work?
Bob Cannard: Cover crops are nature's way of preserving, enhancing and balancing the soil. All they are, are crops that grow naturally, or are planted, that are allowed to grow and establish and protect the soil, cycle nutrients and actually build soil, absorb atmospheric carbon, deposit it in the soil as food for the soil biology, which is the important digestive force of all life.
Bob Shaffer: Yes, cover crops are simply plants. Now, we're going to chose the genus and species of plant that we call a cover crop, or, as Bob said very brilliantly, we can also just accept the resident vegetation – that which is growing in a field or pasture. But let's recall that plants are the organism on earth that harvest carbon out of the air and puts that carbon into a form that we call organic matter. So plants are literally producing organic matter on earth that we then can introduce into the soil as a carbon source, which is food for microorganisms and other animals, and then also the plant above ground is protecting the soil surface.
Where are cover crops most popular?
BS: Cover crops are being used every place around the world right now, more and more every time. I've watched Napa and Soma Valleys (California), as I'm sure Bob has also, become quite well cover cropped compared to ten or fifteen years ago; they're more and more used all the time every place.
Bob Cannard, as a long-time cover crop user, can you tell us the key benefits of using cover crops, as opposed to mulches and other methods?
BC: They stimulate the soil biology: all plants produce lots of sugars and other complex organic molecules that they pump into the soil and establish a relationship with the soil, so they actually nurture the soil. At the same time, their root system breaks up (subsurface soil compaction), and cycles nutrients from deeper profiles to the surface, making the soil more aerobic and balanced towards aerobic life – which it's all about.
By comparison to mulching, they grow many cubic yards (depending on the intensity and the size of the cropping system) of compost for the soil. And mulching – you're getting that organic material from another piece of ground, and it sacrificed its organic material to turn it into mulch or compost, which is spread on the ground, and it takes a lot of BTUs of petroleum energy in order to do all of that and spread it. Whereas the cover crop is very low energy input: the seeds are planted and they grow, and they harvest that atmospheric carbon, and deposit directly into the soil without those heavy inputs.
That's a very interesting benefit.
BS: It's very expensive to grow mulch on one piece of land, take the carbon from that land and move it over to another. We'd like to grow and use the cover crop as our source of mulch.
Bob Cannard, you manage hundreds of acres of vineyards that use cover crops successfully. Can you tell me a little about your strategy and what cover crops you use?
BC: We have a thousand acres in cover crops. Every winter time is the rainy season, and we plant in the fall after harvest, or just before harvest. We used mixed seeds and I'm a great proponent of a mixture of cover crop plants.
First off you need very low energy, quick germinating nurse plants that hold and protect the soil for the higher-level life support plants that come along slower and later. The cover crop protects the soil from all kinds of erosion, and the little quick growers do that quickly. They don't provide too much organic matter, but they really help the next stage, and the next stage is perhaps the low proteinaceous broad-leaves, and then you'll phase in to the higher proteinaceous grasses – more and more biomass. And finally, the high level of life, long term blooming plants, like the clovers and the vetches and the peas and the beans – the leguminous plants that take much longer to mature. Each one helps the next one, and the diversity is a very important element.
We like to grow our cover crops and let them stand to as full maturity as possible. In the organic kingdom, there's lots of conversation about green manure cover crops; well, they break down very quickly and release lots of nitrogen. What I'm looking for is lots of carbon, and stimulating the free-living nitrogen-fixing biology of the soil, and this vastly reduces the need for nitrogenous influences, applications, fertilisers on the vineyards – and in the vegetable gardens as well.
Can you get a little more detailed about the process and tell us when you plant the seeds, how you cultivate it – if you do at all – when you mow it, and how you manage it all?
BC: Well, it depends entirely on the site. Some sites, hillside sites, are never cultivated and the cover crop leans progressively more towards perennial plants. Other sites are cultivated, but we do our best to cultivate as late as possible, allowing the cover crop plant to come to its maturity. When you try to incorporate a green plant, like a green manure, it has only lived a portion of its life and it has a high nitrogenous body; whereas if you allow to as great a degree of maturity as possible, it dries out, it makes its own seeds (some varieties reseed themselves and don't need to be included in successive plantings), and it's straw is carbonaceous and has a longer than one year half-life in a temperate climate. So you actually build soil carbon, the foundation of the soil digestion, which is an absolutely critical motion. Everything has to have good digestion, and that digestive force solubilises the minerals. Additionally, on the soil surface, that straw spawns and sponsors the various yeasts, so we are less dependant upon yeasting the pressed grape juice to make wine, and we can use the indigenous yeast of the particular site in many cases which means we get the true terroir, or taste of that soil and that location.
To be clear about the general process of cover cropping: you plant the seeds, either in spring for summer cover crops, or in the autumn for winter cover crops. You can use it as a green manure by mowing it and incorporating it into the soil when usually when it's flowering and still green, or you can wait until it's a little woody and chop or mow it down to use as mulch. Is that correct?
BC: Yes, it's mowed down or grazed down, and maybe cultivated, or maybe just mowed and grazed – it depends upon the plot and the variety, and air drainage, and many, many variables. We're always trialling little plots of little pounds of sprinkling here and there, and it takes a while to grow the soil; if you have a herbicided, clean cultivated, long-standing degraded soil, high level of life plants like clovers may not take hold, because it doesn't have properly developed soil biology yet. But through the use of incorporating the maturity of the cover crops over seasons, the soil population will change and you'll get the nice, soft, beautiful, proteinaceous, easy to work with kinds of plants, and they will take over from the thistly, thorny, creepy-crawly, difficult types of plants to manage.
So viticulturalists should be prepared to invest a bit of time at the beginning if the soil isn't healthy already. And is there anything specific to vineyards that viticulturalists need to understand about cover cropping – is it much different to cover cropping for farms?
BC: Not particularly, but the height of the type of plant and whether it's an annual cropping cycle or a perennial, and its degree of maturity so that it can become reseeded, so you don't have to reseed it annually – at least not with all of the species…
We use early season grazing of sheep and goats at high density, quick rotation so that they aren't over-grazed but just appropriately grazed. The sheep actually stimulate the regrowth of the cropping system, so it responds as the season advances into the summer time with a good early maturity. Then, in many cases where it's just mowed, what you end up with is all of this reflective strawy grass on the soil surface – not just grass but all the plants that turns golden as it dries out – and it reflects heat back up to the fruits underneath the canopy and actually increases the warmth and the dryness of the canopy. This reduces the incidents of mildew, and stimulating this broad array of canopy biology that additionally enhances the resistance of the plant through species competition of one dominant mildew type problem.
That's a unique benefit of cover cropping, or mulching. And Bob Shaffer, do you want to add anything?
BS: We have to recall that viticulture is a monoculture, often times at least, and I see the cover crop as a way to bring diversity, and to break the problems that are associated with monocultures. Also, I can rotate the genus and species that I use; I can rotate them over space, I can rotate them over time, so it actually adds, not only diversity to the monoculture, but adds the component of rotation. For example, I can put perennials on one side of the vines or tractor rows; I can manage that as a perennial cover for a few years, and then I can have annuals on the other side. I can also use those annuals and/or the perennials – or specific strips planted through the vineyard – as a beneficial habitat and food sources for beneficial insects, beneficial life forms in the vineyard. So, in all ways, the cover crop – if selected and managed well – can be the source of diversity, can be the source of rotation, and the source of beneficial life forms brought to the vineyard.
There are many variables when it comes to cover cropping, and there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach, but is there something you would recommend to everyone starting off with cover cropping?
BS: It's something that teaches you. I'd encourage people to immediately start cover cropping, and all farmers must always have trials going on. These do not have to be large, expensive, exhausting procedures, but having some type of trial always going on in the farm shows you where to head next. It also is your little classroom where you can go out and look and learn. So having at least some strips of cover crops – of different species always – to learn what to plant next is a good idea.
There are a lot of species to choose from as well. Bob Shaffer, what are your thoughts on choosing the best species for vineyards?
BS: On choosing species, one of the things you want to do, as Bob Cannard pointed out, you want to use a polyculture. I'm always going to use a mix of grasses, legumes and forbes when I'm planting. Also, as we broadcast it or drill this type of mix, the site itself will sort out which plants are most appropriate there.
In frost-prone vineyards, cover crops may the increase in risk of frost damage. What is your advice regarding this?
BS: Certainly if I'm going to put a cover crop into a frost prone vineyard, then I'm going to add the important component to the cover crop that we haven't directly mentioned yet, which is as important as species selection, or any other feature of the cover crop: the management of the cover crop. So, if I have frost concerns, I'm going to select cover crops that are low growing, and then I can manage the cover crop in the frost season by further mowing it – at least on one side of the rows to allow some air drainage. Also, if you're using broad-leafed species, they tend to have less of the ice nucleating bacteria on their leaf surface, and are less prone to causing frost problems in the vineyard or orchard.
I want to address another common worry that people have regarding cover crops, which is water usage. Wouldn't cover cropping add extra irrigation costs for drier climates?
BC: We grow over-winter cover crops and we utilise rainfall as a natural irrigation, and it actually increases rainfall infiltration by reducing soil compaction. So actually, we reduce irrigation requirements; and then, it's depositing on the soil surface at maturity, high levels of carbon, and one unit of carbon will support and hold approximately eight units of water. So, we increase our water holding and infiltration characteristics by increasing the organic matter content and the root zone development through cover cropping.
Yes, I read in a couple of articles, including a 1994 research article in the California Agriculture journal, that winter crops generally have very little impact on soil moisture compared to summer cover crops – so that would be a good option for vineyards. And Bob Shaffer, do you have anything to say about water usage or to add to Bob Cannard's point?
BS: The cover crop, particularly because of its roots being in the ground, increases the humus levels. As those roots decompose, it increases the humus level, and this is the material that Bob Cannard was referring to as holding more water in the soil.
Though I will say that, sometimes if I have an existing vineyard, maybe it's old and maybe the soil is weak and worn out, the transition period of introducing cover crops into that vineyard – there has to be some care taken to make sure that we don't take water away from vines. Obviously, a cover crop plant uses some water when it grows, but it's more an issue of timing: both timing in terms of transitioning into a cover crop (where the vine gets used to having other roots around it) and also as we build humus in the soil, there's a little transition time that's needed for that. And then, if we use a little water in the spring time for the cover crop, that doesn't take away critically from the other crop – whether it be vines or some other plant; but later in the year, as the cover crop has been managed into a mulch, we're actually using less water because we're protecting the soil surface, we've built humus in the soil… And so, the timing issue on water needs to always be addressed rather than saying "okay, does the cover crop use water or not".
So the takeaway from this is that timing is everything and it may increase water usage at the beginning, but in the long run it will actually save water. And now onto the management question: I presume it takes a little more time and effort to manage cover crops – wouldn't this increase management costs?
BS: Considering whether cover crops raise our management costs, we have to look at the whole farm, and look at the multiple benefits that the cover crop has brought to the farm to address whether we lost or benefitted in terms of management dollars.
Can you both give me some examples?
BC: Well, my field, these vineyards that I assist in managing were conventionally grown and heavily cultivated, and herbicided underneath the vine rows. And we had, when I first took over twelve years ago, a preponderance of tenacious, noxious weeds that interfered with the canopy of the grape vine, and through management of the cover crops – planting selected varieties and improving the soil, and utilising inter-crop grazing of the sheep and the goats – after twelve years now we have very few noxious weeds and it's actually reduced our over all costs; weeds that would shoot up from the herbicided strip into the canopy that had to be mowed or supressed in one fashion or another.
BS: Another aspect of management that cover crops can safe you money instead of cost you money would be for dust control, for example. A lot of times a vineyard or farm will get very dusty during the dry season, whereas if we have cover crops and we've managed over to stubble and/or mulch on the surface, it reduces dust. That dust can increase mite pressure in the vineyard, so if we have mulch and we're absent of the dust, then it decreases our cost of spraying for mites, or managing for mites. There a number of other features that we could name that the cover crops actually decreases management costs.
One of the benefits I came across was the introduction of beneficial predator insects that keeps pests down. Has that been your experience?
BC: We've had very few problems with pests.
BS: Certainly, if you provide habitat and food for everyone, then the system tends to become more balanced. Where there are appropriate numbers of predators, there are appropriate numbers of prey. As the goal in "managing the farm" or "managing pests" is not to eliminate all the pests; it's simply to increase the antagonism from the pest's predators. And we do this by carbon, we do this by having flowering plants; nectar, pollen, habitat, and carbon above ground.
If anything, I'll say the cover crop, with all the glory that we've talked about and the beauty of the cover crop, still: the cover crop shouldn't be viewed as all we need; we always have to look after the whole system and say "okay, look: I'm going to manage organic matter, which includes cover crops, compost and mulches. I'm going to manage minerals. And I'm going to manage my tillage". Those three areas: OM management, mineral management, and tillage management all need to be considered, all need to be cared for to have the cover crop show its best; to have the compost to show it's best, and to have the minerals show its best. They're linked in biology, they're linked in being foods, and they're all necessary to manage at the same time to get the best benefits.
So a holistic approach is really what you're going for. And are there any other benefits to using cover crops that would outweigh other management costs?
BC: The cover crop and the soil surface organic material holds and supports the soil, where many clean, cultivated and just bare soil surfaces can be very tacky. Let's say during harvest we have modest rainfall, then it impedes the ability for the harvest crews and the equipment to move through the vineyard because of the muddiness, whereas with the increase of soil surface organic material (and especially the dry carbonaceous material), the soil surface is held and supported by the residual root systems. And the soil surface itself is protected by the strawy organic material, and this really reduces the stickiness in many different ways: just physically at a large-scale straw level, and at a digested carbon level/humus level it allows the soil particulate matter to be happy with itself and want to stick to other elements, such as harvesters feet
That's an interesting benefit that I wouldn't have thought of, actually.
BS: That's actually a huge benefit, even during the year sometimes with the irrigation systems, if you have cover crops it enables workers to have less mud on them, and to have some place to sit down; to have some place that's green and flowering instead of just a bare herbicided soil. There's a huge difference in the vineyard for both the people and the crop when we use cover crops.
We've covered a lot of ground in this episode already, although we could probably go on forever. But for the final question: are there any issues you want to address with cover crops, or anything else that viticulturalists need to keep in mind when cover cropping?
BC: Well, it's a possibility that you might have overgrowth. A lot of viticulturalists, back to frost issues, are worried about canopy heights of cover crops. Well, there's legitimacy to this, because it reduces air drainage, but at the same time, a high-density cover crop of good, bread-leafed plants has a better canopy biology to it that resists frosting. And those plants are also respiring energy and actually warm the vineyard's atmosphere on cold nights.
No, there are definitely problems, and it's a progressive activity. A novice viticulturalist beginning to grow cover crops might be afraid to let them come to maturity, and boy, that's all right – it's a beginning. And as we develop and grow, we develop more confidence as we grow, and we also develop our soils and select a broader diversity of cropping specimens, a variety, and allow them to come to greater maturity.
BS: That's certainly experience speaking, and I'll say to summarise that excellent comment by Bob Cannard: I would encourage people to view cover cropping as a transition, as part of a transition into more healthy soils, and to better above-ground relationships, rather than an instant change.
Well put. So, cover cropping is definitely beneficial, it just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of effort to get it all going. But once you have the experience, it's probably the best way to go. Unfortunately that's all we have time for I'm afraid, thank you Bob Cannard and Bob Shaffer for coming on the show.
BC: Well, thank you for your interest.
Tags: agronomy carbon climate change compost cover crops environment green manure mulch plants soil soil health soil science sustainability sustainable agriculture vineyards viticulture wine
[Retrospective] Drought Special #3: Fighting A Drought: Levers for the Public Sector
Today's retro episode is all about policy, and the Australian experience.
Our guests are former Governor General of Australia and Advocate for Soil Health, Major General Michael Jeffery, and co-founder of Ylad Living Soils Rhonda Daly. In this episode we discover the crucial elements needed to build a comprehensive policy framework that will protect not only our soils but our landscapes. We look at the current Australian system, soil health, incentives for compost production, farm management practices, and the need to change our systems in order to better reward and support our land managers – the stewards of the earth. We then link this back to the current recommendations made in the FAO's report Status of the World's Soil Resources.
Episode 2: Drought Special #3: Fighting A Drought: Levers for the Public Sector.
Status of the World's Soil Resources 2015, Technical Summary. FAO Report.
International Compost Awareness Week Australia. May 2nd – 8th. New South Wales, Australia. Organised by the Centre for Organic Research & Education (CORE).
International Composting Awareness Week Australia (ICAW), is a week of activities, events and publicity to improve awareness of the importance of compost, a valuable organic resource and to promote compost use, knowledge and products. We can compost to help scrap carbon pollution by avoiding landfilling organic materials and helping to build healthier soils.
Photo by suburbanbloke / CC BY
When it comes to drought, it seems that up until now, the drought relief packages were based on Exceptional Circumstances programs and included mostly financial support for farmers already in dire circumstances, with very little attention given to actual prevention of drought or preparing for drought before hand. However, there are some changes occurring now with the National Drought Program Reform that is starting in July, which recognises that drought no longer fits in the exceptional circumstances category, and will focus more on drought preparedness through providing training programs for land managers on risk assessment and financial planning and so on. But General Jeffery and Rhonda Daly, you both agree that a lot more has to be done. So General Jeffery, maybe you can tell us what you think is necessary for the public sector to do in order to actually prepare for drought and minimise the effects of drought on the Australian landscape?
General Jeffery: Well I think the first thing to do is recognise that at the present time, Australia doesn't have a real national policy in terms of how it wants to look after the Australian landscape as a totality; that is, its river systems, its flood plains, its wetlands, its riparian zones; agriculture areas, grazing areas, mining areas and so on. And I think until we get a policy that spells out the need to have, perhaps as a light on the hill, to restore and maintain an Australian landscape that is fit for purpose – that is fit for all the things I just mentioned – we're all going to be stuck doing itty, bitty things (and some of them quite important and quite good), but until we get an over-arching aim of what we want to do, with total state and local people all singing from the same sheet of music, I think we will be struggling, particularly when it comes to drought.
It's getting that policy agreed to restore and maintain an Australian landscape fit for purpose; it has been knocked around a bit. And you can't blame people, that's the way people were taught and trained at the time, but –
Rhonda Daly: Don't you think also that because they're using water as a commodity – as an economic commodity – and so we've got this false economy coming in where we think we're a rich country, but we're actually deteriorating the landscape really badly. Short-term it appears that we're not doing so much damage because economically we're doing so well, but ultimately, the wheels are going to fall off that analogy for sure.
So Rhonda you're saying that people involved have a very myopic view of the situation and focus only on the short term economic results, rather than the bigger picture, which I think is definitely the case in many other countries as well. And General Jeffery, you're saying that we need to get all levels of public sector – local, national and state, to come together and agree on a national policy for restoring and maintaining the landscape. How would you propose we start?
GJ: Well part of the issue has got to be that, if we want to restore and maintain this landscape so that it is fit for various purposes, you've got to ask yourself, "What are the three key ingredients that will enable us to do that?" And it's really about the integrated management of your soil, your water (that is, the hydrology), and the biodiversity – the plants and so on that you're growing, whether crops or grasses, or what have you. So, good farming practice and land management practice, mining practice and everything else, depends on the stakeholders having a very clear understanding of the need for that integration, and understanding the art and science of doing it properly. And that's where good farming practices and land management practices come into play.
My next question here was to ask you if you think soil is the most important factor for healing the landscape and therefore protecting against drought, but what you're saying is that all three aspects, soil, water and vegetation, are all important?
GJ: Yes, I think we've got to talk about landscape rather than soil. Although I'm the National Soil Advocate, I think that's a misnomer to a degree because it gets everybody focused on just looking at soil, when we should be looking at water and biodiversity. And Rhonda raised a very good point specifically on the water, where I think our focus in this country for many years has been in the wrong direction. We've always looked at how much water we've got in our rivers and streams and dams, and we then issued licenses, and so on, to users of that water. But the total amount of water falling on our landscape every year, if you take it as a hundred drops: only ten drops end up in the rivers, two drops end up in the dams, and another two drops end up as run-off off the roads and roofs – that's only fourteen percent.
But that's what we all look at – we focus on that because that's what we can see. Where we're missing is the other eighty-six percent that falls on the landscape, of which only about thirty-six actually gets into the soil where you want it, and the other fifty percent evaporates into the atmosphere because it can't infiltrate.
And holding water in soils is a very important of drought management as well, which we've mentioned quite a few times in previous episodes. Rhonda, would you agree with that?
RD: I would agree. I would agree that there's a huge amount of land that, as you say, needs hydrating – the wetlands and… But you know, truly and really I think that it's quite sad that I don't know whether they see that as the most important thing that they have to do at the moment. I think so much energy is going in other places. I truly don't believe they know the workings of our environment and landscape, and what is the best way of getting it back – and spending the dollars to get it back into a healthy condition again.
GJ: I think that you really need political decisions at the senior level of federal and state to ensure a proper implementation of an appropriate process. So, I think it gets back again to this lack of an over-arching policy where we need to look after the landscape, and then the various ingredients that'll make it work, and we discussed two or three of them earlier on.
Indeed. And what you're saying is that it really is important for senior levels in government to take an active role in this, because there are big decisions to be made, and they need to steer the ship. But in terms of getting the research right, there are already wheels in motion, because just recently the Australian Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry recently launched the National Soil Research, Development and Extension Strategy, which aims to secure Australia's soil for profitable industries and healthy landscapes, and among its many goals, it aims to "improve communication and sharing of soil knowledge", and "to adopt a national approach to building future skills and capacities". SO this is definitely a step in the right direction and perhaps it will achieve some of what you are calling for?
GJ: Yes, I think that is a good step in the right direction, and as the National Soil Advocate, we were able to bring together an expert advisory panel of four of the nation's top land management scientists, backed by another twenty or so scientists who support them, and we were able to input into that strategy, which was really about doing four things: quantifying our soil asset in respect to data and mapping, and what are our soil types, and how healthy is it. And then, how do we go about securing our soil by identifying and evaluating best practice by looking at soil structure improvement, soil biology, carbon and so on. And the third bit was to look at understanding our soils, which is the technical level: the training of our ag scientists, soil carbon sampling, understanding the hydrology of our soils, understanding the soil biology and so on. Then there was soil at the interface, which was really looking at the search on environmental impacts: understanding water capture and storage in soil. So I think that the RD&E (the Research Development and Extension policy) that was launched by the minister a couple of weeks ago is very much a step in the right direction and I'm pleased that we were able to have at least a little bit of an input into it.
That's a pretty comprehensive strategy focusing on soils, and I daresay one of the first of its kind. And it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the future. But in the past, has soil and soil health has featured in Australian drought policy in any big way before now, or has it been side-lined?
RD: From y perspective I would think that in all of the drought policies that they're putting into place, soil health is definitely featured, and not only soil health but the management practices as well. So, yes they are incorporating and recognising that soil health is a major player in ensuring that we hold more water in our landscape for plants in these drier times. So, I think they're recognising that, but there just seems such a huge part, and chunk, that still needs converting. Because, I would say that there's really only maybe two or three percent of Australian farmers who are actually really practicing regeneration of the landscape, and the rest is going as business as usual. And how do we get the business as usual people to understand the importance of their soil, not just for today's farming and their productivity and profitability, but for future generations to come?
So, I think Australia's got a really short term view of their soil health, and we tend to – and that's because of economic restraints – but we tend to look at just the now. "What do we do now to make us a profit this year that will keep us on the farm next year?" And I think economics, with one in seven farmers owing more than half a million dollars, plays a huge role in farmers up taking these different methods of rebuilding our landscapes back to being healthy again. It's very much on just paying the bills.
GJ: One of our policy drives in restoring and maintaining this landscape fit for purpose is to reward farmers fairly not just for their product, which is another subject in itself, but also as primary carers of the agricultural landscape, because they look after about sixty percent of the continent. And I believe that we need to reward farmers for looking after the landscape on behalf of twenty-two million urban Australians. Now as to what sort of thing you might do to do that, it can be varied: it might be designating part of the new land army that the Government is going to establish to plant trees on the ridges where a farmer wants it, or to get a cheaper bank loan if he's going to fix his riparian zone, or a whole range of measures that are not hand-outs, but are provided with a definite outcome in view, which relates to restoring and maintaining that landscape so that it's in the best possible condition. And I think if we're clever we'll be able to do that, and in part overcome the problem that Rhonda's just raised, that so many of our farmers are in very, very heavy debt.
Right, which definitely won't help. And on that note, would you say, General Jeffery, that if the new carbon sequestration methodology gets approved, that this would encourage farmers to change their practices? And for our audience, this new methodology is part of the Carbon Farming Initiative, which is a Federal Government initiative to enable people in the land sector to generate revenue through the reduction of carbon emissions by using approved methodologies. So, would this be a potential help for them?
GJ: Yes, I think that if we've got a climate change problem – and I believe we have – that's going to exacerbate our ability to produce more food, and the only way we can help to adjust to that is by sequestering carbon into the soils. The big issue for Australia is going to be in the complexity of the legislation – all the criteria upon which farmers can gain access to that money. And I think we really have to have measuring systems for carbon that are set to business standards, not to scientific standards, so your means of measuring don't have to be quite so accurate when you're talking about commercial operations, and therefore can be a bit simpler in terms of a farmer then being able to access what could be a very important source of revenue; and also a very, very important source of helping to adjust to climate change, and perhaps to control it to a degree.
And touching on what you said before, about support payments not being hand-outs: I wonder about citizens in general, particularly urban dwellers, are they sympathetic towards farmers and their situation, or is there work to be done there to get them on board?
GJ: Yes, well another of our policy drivers, and I think it may almost be the most important, is to reconnect urban Australia with its rural roots. That is, reconnect twenty-two and a half million people living in cities and towns with a hundred and thirty thousand farmers and perhaps a hundred thousand miners, or something like that. Now, unless we do that we're going to find an even greater gap and lack of understanding between the two. And of course, you'll never get the political support that's needed to look after our farmers and landscapes properly unless you've got voter support. So we have to have that reconnection.
And to do that I think there are several ways. The first is that we've got to get to the young people, and I would do this by setting up, for example, a school garden in every school in the country. Something that can show a six year old, and then a ten year old, and then a thirteen year old, just exactly what the soil does, and how it's composed, and how photosynthesis and transpiration works; and how you produce healthy food from healthy soil that leads to healthier animals and healthier people. So I think that is one simple way in which we can get urban Australia over time connected; and hopefully the kids will take these messages home to mum and dad, and that would help us get through to the adults at the same time.
But getting the adults on side, I think we're going to have to use a little bit of stick and a little bit of carrot. The stick is going to be the global food imperative, because in my view we're going to be pushing it, and I think we're going to see a lot of social disruption and probably conflict impacting on hundreds of millions of people – and Australia will not be isolated from that. So what we have to say to our own people is that there are going to be big, big problems overseas, and whilst we have some problems in how we're looking after our landscape here, we've also got the answers. And if we're clever enough and fast enough, we'll get those answers implemented pretty quickly. And not only will it ensure our own food-water security, but we'll also be able to export some more food – but even more importantly, export knowledge, because even if we double food export, we'd only feed a hundred million, but if we exported knowledge we might be able to feed a billion.
I'd really like to stress the school garden idea myself as one of the best ways to get the urban population interested in nature. There are also things like community gardens and urban farms that can really help forge a connection. School compost schemes and education can play a huge part too, and I'd like to speak more about compost now, because we've heard a lot in previous episodes about the benefits of compost for soil health and drought protection. And Rhonda, you have a wealth of experience in the industry, and as a compost producer yourself, can you tell me what type of incentives exist for you that encourage compost production and use?
RD: That's a really good question, and I've had to search my mind. On a smaller level, the council is starting to introduce green bins to collect compostable waste, and there's recycling bins and things like that. But from a primary producer's perspective, I don't really know of too many incentives or initiatives where people will come – unless there's a trial being done by Landcare or CSIRO, where they want to get the compost – for them to get into using compost or other biological fertilisers that are a little bit softer on the land and create healthier plants at the same time.
AORA is an industry body – the Australian Organics Recycling Association, which used to be the old Compost Australia – they are promoting it as much as they can, but I do feel as though there's got to be more policy in there that is going to give farmers the incentive – and possibly there's going to be a dollar incentive. However, I do believe that there's going to be people who want to do it because they know intuitively that that's what they need to do while they're here on earth. However, the ones who still haven't reached that calling yet, that maybe the Soil Carbon Methodology, or policies, will see them change over to something new.
So there may need to be financial incentives for some farmers to get them to start composting. And often compost producers will tell us about roadblocks or regulations that actually hinder their ability to run their businesses. Can you tell me about the situation regarding this where you are?
RD: Yeah, sure. It appears that our government supports recycling organic waste – so, reducing landfill, rebuilding soils and… However, the cost of complying with many of these regulations make it not worthwhile for a lot of companies to pursue. And I actually phoned Paul Coffey from AORA today and asked him what's going on, because he's right on the ground level: and the EPA are at present trying to impose a new regulation that is going to put a huge financial burden on compost operations, where they have to have a bank guarantee, and it has to be supplied to the EPA saying that if the operation for some reason goes insolvent, then the money [is used] to cover the clean up of the site. Inevitably this is one situation where this happened. It's going to cost some operations as much as one-point-five million dollars to have a bank guarantee sitting there, and, as Paul was saying, it will close down many, many operations. And the thing that they're forgetting to see is that levies are paid to the EPA that could be used for these clean-ups.
So, this is just one of those regulations made in their ivory tower, they're not really in touch with what's out there, and it could cost the industry very, very dearly because less people will be wanting to go into composting and recycling these seventeen million tonnes of organic waste that we have.
I guess it just comes back again to having a clear and coordinated strategy so these things won't happen.
RD: Yes. Well, it's fortunate that we do have AORA there, and Paul spends a lot of time doing policies, and going to the EPA and working it out for members such as myself. So, definitely, these bodies are very, very important for the ordinary person like myself, because they're there to ensure we don't get so many restrictions and conditions on us that it makes it basically impossible do composting.
It's definitely is an issue I've heard before, which once again seems to show that more coordination across different interests could really help. And what I'd like to focus on now is farmers and land management strategies. Because one of the key ways to make change happen is to demonstrate how it can be done, and General Jeffery, you're Chairman of the non-profit organisation Soils For Life, which is doing great work to support farmers in changing to better practices and advocate for a change in how land is managed generally. And you have been researching case studies of farms that are using sustainable practices in order to spread the word, and the case studies are available online. But through your work with Soils for Life, could you see ways in which incentives and policies could encourage farm managers to change their practices and adopt more drought-resisting practices?
GJ: Well, thanks for those comments on Soils For Life, and of course, Bill and Rhonda are a very important component of the nineteen case studies. We just did nineteen initially because that's what we were able to raise the money for, and we wanted to actually prove the concept, and well I think we've done that, and now we want to roll-out another forty or fifty – and then hopefully hundreds and then some in clusters. I suspect the encouragement to do that will be in showing those who are looking to make a change that, first of all, it's economically viable. They're not going to commit unless they can see a dollar in it. And to get that dollar I think we certainly have to do things in terms of how we're looking at food in terms of pricing, and how we're looking at rewarding farmers in how they're rewarding the land.
But, maybe we've also got to look at a new definition of productivity, because so often, I'll think you'll find the bank saying to a farmer, "Well, to meet your debt obligation, you're going to have to lift your productivity [muffled] by five percent next year, or whatever. And therefore the farmer then either has to put in a bit more superphosphate, or clear a bit more land, or put a bit more land under crop when he probably hasn't even got it. And so, false pressure is put on him to lift his productivity, and the same might be true of pressures that may be imposed or implied by the two big chain stores that buy sixty or seventy percent of the produce.
So perhaps we've got to look at productivity again nationally in a different way. And if a farmer operating to ninety percent of what he saw as the traditional productivity, which was also degrading his landscape, but ninety percent productivity by his old measure keeps him in permanently good health and good shape, it is far better to look at a system that relates that sort of equation than a farmer whose been striving to do one hundred and two or one hundred and three percent – which he might do for twelve months or two years, and then his soils collapse on him and he goes broke, and the bank has to foreclose, and doesn't get anything out of it either. Perhaps you see where I'm coming from – that we have to look at productivity in a slightly different way?
Yes, I think I get you, that the notion of productivity should also look at if the land is better managed and can sustain at the same level of productivity for a long period of time, rather than purely looking at the percentage of crop yield. But then, how would you envision we tackle situation with productivity, or protect our farmers from bank pressures and supermarket pressures and the likes?
GJ: Well again, I think it gets back to the policy, and about the rewards. You see, unless we have these policy parameters in place, we're going to have the same arguments – they'll just continue. And the same problems will continue. So you've really got to get the aim right for what you want to do: you've got to get the soil -water strategic assets declared as such and managed as such; you've got to get farmers properly rewarded (and we've been through that); you've got to get urban Australia really understanding the importance of soil, water and biodiversity, and therefore the importance of farmers, so that if, for example, we might have to pay another half a cent for a kilo of carrots, or another two cents for a litre of milk to ensure that a farmer is properly rewarded for his product, then we pay it gladly. And if there are people that are disadvantaged, then there's a welfare net to deal with that. But we cannot have farmers being knocked over with unfair prices simply because companies are competing to reduce, reduce, reduce; which is fair enough in principle, but why should the poor old farmer have to deal with that?
And then, we've got to refocus the science, so that the science properly supports the farmer in terms of measuring soil fertility, carbon sequestration…if we get all these things in place, then I think we will solve the problem very quickly. But until we do, along with our soils program, which is the practical and proven application on the ground, we won't maximise the benefit.
I think that sums it up very nicely. And then, final question to both of you: how long do you think it will take for this coordinated approach and solid policy to come about and transform the landscape? Is there much more to be done?
GJ: I think in terms of what I'm trying to do and what Rhonda's trying to do, I think we're looking at about a ten to fifteen year programme. There is no magic light switch – you can't just transform the whole of the agricultural society overnight, because you're dealing with a hundred and thirty thousand very independent people with their own ideas, et cetera. But the big thing is that we do have the answers, and I think the global imperative…in terms of the opportunities that it provides for our farmers for, perhaps the first time in many, many years, to become sustainably profitable and environmentally sound is going to be there for us to take advantage of – if we can get the proper policy, and fixing the paddock policies in place.
RD: I totally agree with what Michael just said. And in particular, influential people like General Jeffery, who has so many doors he can open – we need people like that to open many more doors, and in time there will be more doors that will open, and people will be coming to us, and far more farmers will be wanting to change.
Tags: agriculture Australia climate change compost debt drought environment FAO farming green International Year of Soils landscape policy public sector soil soil health water
TRAILER – Water & Carbon: 3 New Answers to the Water Crisis in California and Beyond
Our editorial team is currently producing a 6-episode series of The Organic Stream talk show, dedicated to spreading strategic insights to influencing bodies and support drought relief efforts in California and other regions of the world facing a water crisis.
Until today, the focus of the water crisis in California has been on conventional strategies and short term actions, instead of outlining solutions and creating a debate that ties to the broader picture of water, waste, carbon and energy management.
The Organic Stream team traveled the length of California to collect insights from the field and work with key players from the agricultural sector, compost industry, scientific community and public sector in crafting a new narrative. A narrative that ties together several of the challenges the state is facing with food production, water management, waste management and climate change to provide clues on how an integrated approach to resource management can dramatically change the game for the better and for the benefit of all.
The show will blend expert interviews, storytelling, narrated content, soundscapes and music. Each episode is approximately 30 minutes.
Tags: California carbon climate change drought environment farming food food production podcast soil soil health sustainability The Organic Stream trailer utilities waste management water water management
Horticulture Special #1: Compost's Transformative Effect On Olive Orchard
We're kicking off the year with a focus on the use of compost in horticulture – how compost use affects soil composition and soil health, and the plants or crops grown in it.
This week, we're talking to Graham Brookman of The Food Forest organic farm in Gawler, South Australia about how compost has helped transform his poor quality soil and sensitive olive crops and greatly impacted his business for the better. We'll be discussing how exactly compost works to improve the soil, and the olive crops especially, and we'll also be exploring the cost factors involved, sourcing compost, the challenges he faced at the beginning, and how long it took to see changes in the soil and crops.
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COMPOST2015: Organics On The Rise – The USCC's 23rd Annual Conference and Tradeshow. January 20-23, 2015.
The world's largest organics recycling conference and tradeshow. COMPOST2015 is organised by the US Composting Council, and takes place in Austin city, TX. The event is dedicated to sharing knowledge about everything: from how to run a compost facility to the challenges of collecting green waste and food scraps. Those who attend the sessions and pre-conference classes can earn continuing education credits as well as cutting edge techniques in the industry.
Visit www.compostingcouncil.org/compost2015 for details.
Photo by Aracuano. Some right reserved.
The Food Forest – Soil and Olives
Q: Can you tell me a bit about the Food Forest and your olive orchard especially?
Graham Brookman: The Food Forest is a small farm, of about twenty hectares, and of that about seven hectares are irrigated, which is important because we have an annual rainfall of only about forty-four hundred mills (millilitres). We have about one hundred and sixty different varieties of food that we produce, and in addition to the raw foods, we do a lot of value adding; so we would not only produce grapes, but the wine from the grapes, and the vinegar from the wine, and so on. So we tend to have a value-adding stream, which then creates its own by-products, and those by-products go back into the input of the system to keep it going. So we need the least possible non-renewable inputs from the outside.
So, olives are a particularly interesting crop in our environment. They're very sensitive to the amount of rain that you get, and if they don't get enough water they will sulk and they won't give you a crop. And if they get adequate water, then they'll feel really good and generous and give you good crop. So, we're sitting on the knife-edge with a crop like olives, and the management of water in the soil is completely critical. So it's a very interesting crop to watch when you're thinking about how good your soil is, and how you can maximise your yield, given a particular rainfall.
Q: Can you share with us the situation you had with your soil before you started applying compost – I know it was quite poor quality and a bit of a challenge for you.
GB: The soil is naturally quite low in carbon. It's an alluvial soil, so it's largely fine clay silt brought down from the hills and down from the Barossa Valley, and that's dumped into this old riverbed. So the whole of our farm is actually in a riverbed, and if the river gets angry we actually go under. So we're acutely aware of where our soils have come from, and the upshot of that is that we have naturally around about 0.7 of a percent carbon in our soil, which is very low: a decent agricultural soil in Australia is somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5. So we started right down at the bottom end.
It was a very unforgiving soil that had the capacity to chemically concrete, virtually, in the summertime – so it was like farming on clay bricks. And so our first and major challenge was to unlock the soil from this concreting – and that was mainly done using calcium, so a calcium rich fertiliser. We used gypsum to chase the sodium ions off the colloids so that the soil would become a little bit more crumbly. And from there it's just been a steady building of carbon that has led to the vast improvement of our soil.
How Compost Became A Solution: Location, Contamination & Organic Certification
Q: When did you decide to use compost, and why?
GB: Well we had been thinking about it for a long time, but we were bullied into going into a competition – the South Australian Premier's Food Award – and the sponsor of the award was a guy called Peter Wadewitz from Peat Soils. And, you know, that was sort of by-the-by as far as we were concerned; we were just focused on trying to win the award at that stage.
But along the way, and particularly after we'd won the award, we'd got to know Peter very well, and it was only through talking to him that I realised how cheap compost is. It's much cheaper than chemical fertiliser, and it gives you all of the added micronutrients, and it gives you carbon. So you'd have to be absolutely crazy not to use it in our situation. We are very close to the source – that is the city of Adelaide, which has got a million people producing organic waste, so the hauling distance is short, therefore the price is good. We also had a good contractor who does spreading locally at very competitive rates, and he worked with us to devise a way of throwing the compost into the actual olive rows – right next to the roots of the olive tree, rather than in the inter-row.
So firstly we could get the compost cheaply, and secondly, we could put the compost where it was needed. So altogether it was pretty easy to decide that that was the way to go!
Q: One of the biggest factors in the affordability of compost for farmers is the proximity to a source of compost. I'm sure you agree?
GB: It is. The cost of transport can be an absolute killer. So if you're within fifty kilometres of one of the actual manufacturing points for compost, then you're within a competitive range. But once you start going one hundred, two hundred or three hundred kilometres away, it starts to get pretty much undoable. So we're just very lucky, and it's my belief that we need to create cyclical systems where the city – which consumes the bulk of the food (and many other non-renewable items) and produces this magnificent waste stream that mostly goes out to sea – that could all be going straight into the farming system, which is just out on the periphery of the city, taking advantage of the waste water and the waste nutrient stream.
Q: A big concern for those using compost is the contamination rate of the compost. Did you do any research into the compost quality, or did you have any concerns about the contamination rate yourself?
GB: Well, we're organic growers, so it has to be certified organic, and that was taken care of by the organic certification. So we didn't have to worry much about it.
Q: As organic farmers, you're able to use the compost made from non-organic materials from the city because of the change in certification, correct?
GB: Yes. There was a particular day at which one of the certifiers said, "Okay, we're going to take the view that non-certified organic inputs, i.e. once composted and well done, can be regarded as organic". That was a major breakthrough as far as I was concerned because up until that time we couldn't use it because it wasn't certified organic, and that was a mind-shift by the certifiers. So, that was a very important point.
Q: There are different types of compost to chose from and it can be tailored to suit your specific needs as well – so for your soils and for your orchards, what kind of compost were you looking for?
GB: As a farmer what I was looking for in compost was a high nitrogen level, because nitrogen is the element that drives plant growth most, and in most organic fertilisers there's a dearth of nitrogen. So looking at the different producers, one stood out as having relatively higher nitrogen levels – still not huge, only about between 1.5 and 3 percent in terms of difference – but it makes a hell of a difference to the plants. It's like you've got a rocket under the plant. So I was looking for high nitrogen, and I think that we can mainly thank the resource of animal manure for that. They had access to quite large amounts of animal manure, which went into that particular compost, and that was very important.
Compost Benefits: Water Retention, Increased Yields, Carbon Build-Up
Q: How often do you apply the compost?
GB: Back when we were poor we could only put it on once every two years, and we sort of hit on a rate of about twenty-two cubic metres per hectare – and that's applied in bands under the trees. And then we got a bit richer and we do it every year now. And that's much better because we could see in the second year of that cycle that our yields were less, so we need to keep topping it up. The soil is working hard and it needs to be fed, that's for sure.
Q: What is important to keep in mind when growing olives, and how does the compost affect the olive tree growth, and crops?
GB: As I mentioned, olives are really capable of sulking. So it's very hard to kill an olive; they will just stay alive under really bad circumstances, but in terms of giving you a decent yield, you really need to look after them if they're going to look after you. So they do need reasonable amounts of fertiliser, and reasonable amounts of water. And what we didn't have was any way of storing extra moisture in our soil when it was low carbon. Now we have three times the amount of carbon in our soil, having used compost for twenty-five years. So we have a much higher reservoir of water, which is actually carried within the organic carbon in our soil, and that makes all the difference.
Not only does compost give you ultimately more carbon, it gives you the capacity to hold more nutrients and hold more water in the soil, and for olives that just is enough to make the difference in our environment. We crossed a bridge about fifteen years ago where the olives suddenly decided that they quite liked being here, and instead of miserable little olives and very poor crops, we started to see some really good crops and it just gets better and better.
We haven't had to use any other fertilisers, really, since we moved to compost. We had to fix up some stuff in the beginning, when we were low in magnesium, calcium and boron. But once we had those essential things fixed up, we have simply used compost every year, and it's given us all of the nutrients and the carbon. So it has been quite miraculous. I feel a bit slack really, as a farmer, not having the do all of the recipes and looking at different fertilisers every year!
Q: I can imagine! You touch on some of the benefits here that you've experienced with compost, and I want to focus on that aspect now to give people a clearer idea of just how big an impact it's had for you, particularly at the beginning. According to the case study done by Compost For Soils on their website, Even when you were only applying the compost every second year, production started growing steadily and yields had risen by fifty percent within a four year period – which of course has led to an increase in staff.
Soil organic carbon was as low as .7% and you have now got triple the amount of carbon, which then in turn has a huge impact on the water-holding capacity of your soils – with an increase of moisture infiltration and water holding capacity of up to one hundred percent. So now you've got healthy and happy olive trees, thanks in the most part to compost…
GB: Yeah, it's amazing really…
Q: How exactly has the compost benefitted the olive plants and the yields they produce the way that it has?
GB: One of the main things with compost is that you reduce the stress levels in your plants. So here, if we hit a real heat wave; temperatures can go up to forty-six, forty-seven degrees Celsius (116 degrees Fahrenheit) and that puts the plants into stress to the point that they start producing some quite nasty chemicals – you know, some off-tastes: a lot of tannic kind of tastes – and the compost works in a number of ways to combat that.
One is actually how it keeps the soil temperature lower. So, putting the compost on fairly thick as we do, it's not only acting as compost, it's also acting as mulch. So if you had open, unshaded soil, the temperature might be seventy degrees centigrade or higher; well you wouldn't want to experience that. Or, you can go under a layer of mulch in the same place, and if it's a decent layer then you're down around twenty-five or twenty-eight degrees absolute maximum. So it is absolutely staggering what a difference a bit of mulch makes.
So that's one effect. And then you've got the continued capacity of compost to deliver water to the plants on those hot days. You just get that continual availability of moisture. So I think they're the two key things that compost will do that conventional fertilisers won't.
Q: So it's crucial to supply the plant with a continual supply or water, and the mulch layer is quite critical then for success when it comes to olive growing in hot climates…
GB: Well yes, and as I was saying with the olives; if you don't keep the water up, then they just won't give you a yield. It's as simple as that. We practice what's called deficit irrigation where you don't give the crop all of the water it could possible use, you give it a percentage of that. It's like feeding children too much: if you feed them too much they get too fat and develop various diseases, but if you just keep them a bit leaner and a bit meaner and…but if you starve them they die!
So you've got to find that sweet point where you provide them with enough nutrients and water so they give you that yield, and that's a very particular point. And we all aim for that here because we don't have unlimited water: every little bit of water is very critical and compost helps us to find that sweet point.
Q: And of course with such limited water, it's important that your irrigation applications are effective too…
GB: Overall. Of course, if you are irrigating on soil with low carbon, the water will go, ultimately, straight through it. It's lost to drainage. Whereas if you've got a good carbon level in the top meter of soil, you can store bucket loads of extra water, which means that every kilolitre of water that you're applying is actually being used by the plant instead of losing half of it to drainage, and that's tremendously important. And then, in terms of utilisation of the water you've got in your soil – If you can reduce transpiration and keep your plants together where they haven't kind of collapsed, then again you're getting a much more efficient use of the water. So you're winning in a couple of ways.
Q: That's right, and I didn't mention it before, but over that four year period once again, your irrigation applications grew to be twenty-five percent more effective – not only because of the carbon's capacity to hold water, but because it lowers the temperature of the soil and reduces evaporation as well. But aside from these obvious benefits, what other benefits have you experienced with compost use?
GB: Oh, the soil microflora. If you've got a lot of carbonaceous material and just general vegetable material and so forth, you'll find that you're developing much healthier microbes. We have a laboratory in South Australia that actually tests the different types of microbes you have in your soil; and so you'll have bacterial ones and fungal ones, you'll have pathogenic ones and beneficials…and there isn't any doubt about compost – it just really fixes a soil up that otherwise has no defence.
For the tree – if there's a potential bacterial infection or something like that, with the compost you'll suddenly find that you've got all the fungi and so forth that will get stuck into these pathogens and protect your tree. So there's no question about that. We actually got our soil tested by a doctor Ashley Martin at this laboratory Microbe Labs. And when we first got the results back – you've got all of these issues in your soil, like gauges that you would have on the dashboard of your car, and if the speedometer reading, if you like, is right across to the right, it means you're really good for drought tolerance, and you have another dial which is really good for bacterial-fungal balance, and so on.
And with our soils that have had compost on them for so long, every test that was done by this lab was right across to the right-hand side – fully on. And so it was good to actually see that this trial that was done using the DNA testing of all the microbes in the soil proved exactly what we'd been suspecting all along.
Challenges Faced at the Beginning
Q: Did you face any challenges at the beginning with sourcing or applying the compost?
GB: Well working out how we could band the compost along the actual tree rows. There was a lot of mucking around. We tried shoots sticking out of the side of the machine, and that was quite clumsy because you had shoot that used to crash into trees every now and then, and so forth. And then this guy from Africa – he was a welder – he designed these baffles that went on the back of the spreader. So the spinner would spin the compost out and it would hit these baffles and then bounce into the right place in the row. That was really good. So once we worked that out, it's been pretty straightforward.
Q: Were there any challenges you faced specifically with the olive crops?
GB: We did have quite erratic yields with quite a lot of the crops, and we found that the individual climate of a year was critical to success, and I think compost has evened it out quite a bit. So the crop just charges along anyway, even if when you started this whole process a year like that would have just written you off and would have destroyed you. It doesn't do that anymore because everything's more resilient, and I think that's really important. It gives you much more confidence as a farmer, that's for sure.
Q: How long did it take for the compost to start making an impact on your soils and crops?
GB: The soil improvement came with both calcium sulphate, combined with the compost. And the gypsum, if you get rain, it takes about two or three days and you will notice that a paddock that was like rock now is quite soft. The compost was much slower, and so in terms of noticing a perceptible rise in soil carbon viability and workability with machinery, and that sort of stuff, it took two or three years to get anywhere.
But I think once you get to a certain point, you're going to actually see the benefit in the year of application. So I would say that nowadays, we get all the money back in the first year, and then more money back in the second, third and fourth years from a given application. So your compost is extremely valuable, because you're paying off the investment in the year that you actually apply it – and then you're getting more and more benefit from then on as well.
Investing in Compost: Should You Take The Plunge?
Q: Why do you think some farmers are slow to use or invest in compost?
GB: Most of them are too far away, that's the problem for a lot of them. Farmers are very practical people: if they do the sums and they can see that they will make money in their operation by buying compost rather than something else, mostly they'll take the plunge. They're very hyper-aware of economics. They'll change crops from season to season, and be watching world markets…so there's usually and economic reason; they're economic rationalists, that's for sure.
But the other thing is that you can put on a powerful fertiliser through your drippers in twenty minutes. You can't do that with compost. So fertigation, particularly, is a very fast way of getting nutrients to plants. So I think not being a purist is half of the problem. So I would see a practice emerging that says "We're going to base the soil health of our operation on compost, and we are going to continue to use sophisticated manufactured chemicals to maintain the exact control that we want in out greenhouses", or whatever it might be.
But we could probably still use twice as much compost as we are at the moment.
Q: Do you have any words of advice for other farmers, or olive growers out there that are looking into using compost?
GB: The sooner you start applying compost, the sooner your soil structure will change – that's the main message. You just jump in and start doing it, and I think you'll find that you never stop. You know, I know a lot of people who have sort of weaned themselves onto compost; so they've applied a bit of compost for a couple of years, but they've kept a little bit of chemical fertilising going on at the same time, and then they've switched right across to compost. And so if you're scared you can do that. It's sort of like organics – you can do half your property and then you can do the rest when you're convinced that you're making more money.
So, particularly for farmers that have got a bit of land close to the city, they'll find that they can increase their crops and maybe increase yield two or three times, become more profitable, and be doing the right thing for the planet. It doesn't get better than that!
Tags: audio podcast Australia compost Compost for Soils environment farming horticulture olive orchard olives organic recycling permaculture soil soil health South Australia sustainability The Food Forest The Organic Stream water
NYC: Reaching True Sustainability With Community Composting
This episode corresponds to Lesson 4 and Lesson 5 of our online course.
In this episode, of our now bi-weekly podcast show, we focus on urban community composting in New York City and speak to long-time community composter David Buckel from Added Value Red Hook Community Farm in Brooklyn to learn more about the movement and to discuss the importance of supporting urban community composting schemes to achieve true sustainability. We will explore the ways community composting can demonstrate a closed-loop cycle and educate the public about soil health and sustainability, how community composting fits into a larger organics recycling system and is an integral part of that system, the challenges NYC composting face and the opportunities on the horizon.
Thank you to ORBIS for making this episode possible.
As a leader in organic waste recycling, ORBIS has a wide range of plastic curbside organic recycling bins and carts to chose from to help you improve recycling rates, conserve natural resources and help the environment. With value-added educational programming, community outreach and environmental expertise, ORBIS helps communities meet their organic waste diversion goals while improving the health of the planet. For more, visit their website.
Tune in on August 18th for the next exciting episode.
Photo by Gowanus Canal Conservancy
Where COMMUNITY COMPOSTING is today
Q: The community composting movement is growing strong in New York at the moment. The DSNY, for example, who started their NYC Compost Project in 1993 to support local composting programs, now support over 200 composting sites and 8 to 10 mid-size operations in the five boroughs, and the collection points for dropping off food scraps at greenmarkets are growing in number: over half of the greenmarket farmer's markets are outfitted with a drop-off program.
As a long-time community composter currently working at Added Value Redhook Community Farm in Brooklyn, you're right there on the ground watching all this happening. Can you give me a brief picture of what community composting looks like today?
DB: Quite a bit of it depends upon how you define community composting. There's an awful lot of things going on in terms of community composting in the city; there's quite a bit going on in terms of closing the loop, and a lot of that is in the community gardens around the city. Folks will bring their kitchen scraps to their community garden, where they get composted in small systems. What there's less of is community composting that is defined not only as trying to close the loop as much as possible on organic material, but also engaging the public as much as possible, so that we can promote environmental stewardship.
Q: Community composting has had a long history in New York, hasn't it?
DB: Community composting has been, to a degree, fairly strong in New York, because of the presence of community gardens around the city; New York City is unusual in having hundreds of community gardens. What's new for community composting is adding in the public engagement, and trying to make sure that capacity grows more. The community gardens can take organic material to a degree, but at some point it's just too much for them because their systems are usually quite small. So we're trying to develop more sites that have bigger capacity and can take more organics.
New York Policy Makers Lack Strong VISION For COMMUNITY COMPOSTING
Q: In terms of a vision for community composting, many (including yourself) are in favour of small-scale, decentralised models that prioritise closing the loop, can you tell me what policy makers have in mind for community composting in the city?
DB: We haven't yet seen a strong vision articulated by policy makers for the future of community composting. What I have experienced is more helping what already is happening. So, assistance for community gardens and things like that. The Department of Sanitation has been very helpful in terms of developing slightly larger sites that can take more material, but I haven't seen a vision that essentially articulates where we want to be in the future twenty years from now.
Q: Why do you think that is? We know how challenging it is for them to coordinate all of the different aspects in such a large city, as well as rolling out such a large collection program.
DB: Perhaps they haven't been challenged enough to realise that this is the sort of thing we will have to confront sooner or later, because, to me, there's no way to get around the future in terms of closing the loop on the travel of organics. We will, sooner or later, have to find ways to make sure organics are not travelling large distances in order to be processed. We think that's the kind of vision that has to be articulated at the policy level. And then, everything else comes along with it: even if we optimise community based composting as much as we can, because our cities in the US are so badly designed, there's no question that we will also need curbside pickup as a municipal function; we'll also need commercial composting. We'll need all of those things.
What we're not seeing is a vision that's big enough and future-thinking enough to say that we have to optimise community based composting first and foremost, and then pull in all these other elements to best address the organics.
Community Composting In Practice
Q: Before we tackle the bigger issues, can you tell us more about how things work today with community composting: how are the organics are collected & processed?
DB: One of the most exciting things going on in New York City in terms of organics being collected is the farmer's market collection program. It's run by a group called Grow NYC, which has several green farmer's markets around the city, and they have tables where folks can bring their food scraps from home, drop off their food scraps and then buy their food to take home, where they will make food scraps that then go back to the farmer's market the next week. So it's a wonderful, local cycle for the organics stream.
The food scraps are distributed to different sites around the city, within the city limits, one of which is where I've spent a lot of my time called the Red Hook Community Farm in Brooklyn, New York. And so we will be getting that material from farmers markets in the borough of Brooklyn, closer by. We also maintain tumblers so that community residents who can't compost at home can walk their food scraps over and put them in the tumblers, and that material will wind up in our larger system over time.
Q: Do you see a lot of people participating in this, or is it gaining in popularity?
DB: It's growing more and more popular as people hear about it. They've just passed the three million pound mark in terms of the collections they have done, so it's to be quite big of a scale, and they seem to be adding new farmer's markets every year. So that's very exciting. Another exciting development is that the Department of Sanitation has begun to support the development of urban farms, and you'll see a very similar type of magic happening, because at the urban farms they will often have farm stands where they sell locally grown, fresh produce right next to the fields where the produce is grown. So folks, when they come, will bring their food scraps. And this is what happens in Red Hook, Brooklyn, because folks will come and bring their food scraps, drop them off in our tumblers, and then buy some produce at the farm stand and go back home and create a very nice local circle – a closed loop for the organics.
Q: And how is the organic material typically collected from the farmer's markets and urban gardens?
DB: Well at Added Value's Red Hook Community Farm, the material is brought to us. So, local residents will walk it or bicycle the material from their homes. And then we get some of the scraps from the Grow NYC farmer's markets, which is brought to us in plastic bins by a truck. The big difference is that it's just travelling within Brooklyn, as opposed to having trucks drive on highways and downs streets. We have a smaller truck, as opposed to the bigger trucks that get loaded up and then have to drive outside the city for a distance to transport the material.
Q: One issue we often talk about with organics collection is the contamination rate, and the quality of the organics collected in New York has been described as pristine. Would you agree with that description? What has been your experience?
DB: Well I can't speak for the city, but what I see happening is that, in terms of the material collected at the farmer's markets, we've very, very clean material that's being dropped off – in particular because the folks who go to the trouble of collecting their food scraps and bring them to the community sites once a week are very conscientious, and so our level of contaminants are extremely low.
Curbside Organic COLLECTION And COMMUNITY COMPOSTING – Can They Work Together?
Q: With the DSNY managing an ever expanding residential curbside collection scheme for NYC, can community composting be an integral part of the system, or are they at odds with one another?
DB: In my view they are in direct conflict and at great odds in some ways, and it depends upon the vision that is articulated for policy in a city. For example, when I started this work, I talked to some folks in Toronto, who were very active in trying to promote sustainability in regard to how organics were treated in the city. And they had a choice – they had to either support community composting and invest in it as much as possible, or invest their time in trying to develop curbside pickup. They chose curbside pick up, because they felt it could be a bridge to community composting, and they told me that the exact opposite happened.
Because they had never developed a culture of people trying to keep their organics as local as possible, once the curbside started, it was very challenging to get to that culture, because people could just put things on the curb, and they got into the habit of that. So now what they're looking at is a much longer time-frame for persuading the public that it would be better for their organics to stay much closer to home because it's more environmentally sustainable.
So in that way, Toronto shows that curbside municipal pickup and community composting can be at odds and in conflict, if there's no vision of policy that says we need to be developing community composting as much as we possibly can, while at the same time we recognise that not everything can come to community based composting sites – we do also need curbside municipal pickup. But you see, that kind of vision doesn't see them at odds. That kind of vision says: let's do what's most environmentally first, and develop community composting as much as we can, and then recognise we also have to do curbside municipal pickup, as well as commercial composting. That's different from what happened in Toronto where it seems it was posed as a choice, one or the other, and now my colleagues up there are saying it will take them so much longer to ever develop community based composting.
Q: That is something to bear in mind when developing policy. Now let's move on and talk about the benefits of community composting. I'm sure you agree with me in saying that community composting schemes can really make an impact in educating people on organics recycling and the importance of keeping the stream clean?
DB: That's true. One benefit is that unlike glass or plastic, or metal, it's much easier for the public to participate in the process when it comes to processing the organics. They can't as likely do that with glass, metal or paper, but with community composting, they can go very close to their home, contribute to the compost process, and – if it's a type of a site that places a value on community participation – volunteer in making the compost with their own hands.
That has several benefits. One is that if the material is used in their community, they get much more invested in it, because they see that it's going to be used for a local urban farm, or for street trees, or a food garden their local public school where kids attend. So there's a much stronger connection to it, and more dedication and commitment.
But they also just care more about it in general. So one effect, if it's optimised, is that people will care more about what they're putting out on the curb as well. So, they may take some to community sites, but if they're putting some on the curb for pickup, they know the importance of not having contaminants if they're participated at a community compost site, so they'll be more careful that way.
Q: On the note of education – how do you draw people in and get them interested?
DB: I've never found it hard. On the site at Red Hook Community Farm, as long as you post hours that are consistent – we put hours up on our website so people can check to see when they can volunteer – and we get in touch with the different volunteer groups to let them know what the opportunity is. Very quickly things take off, and the question is not so much, "how do we get people here?, it's more about "oh, is that too many people?", or "how do we best manage this so everyone can have a meaningful experience, given how many people are here?"
Q: That's a great problem to have.
DB: It is, it's a wonderful problem. But it just further demonstrates the importance of community composting – that there's a hunger on the part of so many to participate in this type of work.
Job Creation In Small-Scale COMPOSTING Projects
Q: For those out there that might not be convinced of the importance of community composting yet – can you tell us some more benefits you've seen?
DB: At the top of the list, it's better for the environment. It reduces environmentally costly transport by so many trucks on the streets. It better supports local food growing, and it also supports other green projects in communities. So, if folks want to green up their community with more street trees or flower gardens, or food gardens, there's more compost available locally to do that.
And then here in New York City, after the last hurricane we had, which was so devastating, by building up our urban soils and improving storm water management through community composting, we make ourselves more resilient in the face of climate change. The last hurricane, Hurricane Sandy that came through New York and so devastated us, made that all the more important.
And lastly, over time, if we can develop community composting sufficiently, according to the broad vision of what's the most sustainable way to live, it will generate jobs. We're not there yet, but we're trying – I'm actually running a job training program out at the Red Hook Community Farm, and the movement has to get much bigger in order to start generating jobs.
Q: We're very interested in creating self-sustaining models that benefit the economy and society as a whole – and this is an area that composting and recycling initiatives have a lot of potential. So apart from growing the community composting movement and the sites themselves, what are your main problems or focuses right now in creating jobs?
DB: One important development we need now – and we're so ready for this – is the generation of revenue models. I can't help but say that if community composting is going to be successful, we need some kind of funding stream. The ones that have been developed commercial enterprises don't work, because the goals are a little different. But on the other hand, community composting can't be just a none profit endeavour, because you would wind up chasing grants all the time.
And if one sign of success is that there are more composting sites, the problem you have is that the foundation pie (i.e. grants), gets smaller and smaller. So, much like with urban agriculture (at least in the US), the answer has to be to get a little more business-like and pay more attention to generating revenue, so that even when we continue to turn to foundations for grants, we also have some generation of revenue to develop financially sustainable models of operation.
Q: In relation to this, what is the market like for compost at the moment in New York – is it strong?
DB: It is. Before the hurricane we were able to meet the farm's needs and start to explore some markets, and we found that many buyers are willing to pay a premium – to pay more than they otherwise would because they knew it was locally made compost and they wanted to support that movement. So there was this great, untapped market of people who wanted to support the local economy and keeping things as environmentally sustainable as possible.
Challenges to Overcome: NEGATIVITY and RESTRICTING Laws
Q: New York is a very densely populated area, which I'm sure brings its own unique challenges to community composting. What challenges have you faced in the city?
DB: One is the lack of the broadest vision of where community composting across five, ten, and then ultimately twenty-five, when we want it to be what it should be. So, as a result of that, people too superficially discount community composting with observations like "well, there's just not enough land", or, "Well, we can't divert all of our organics to community composting, so we have to do municipal curbside pickup.
The other thing is existing laws. Not that there was any bad intention in the creation of these laws. In fact, in New York City, some of the most applicable laws were intended to address the problem of organised crime being involved in the hauling industry. And that's an important mission, but the unintended side-effect was that the laws impede the growth of community composting – particularly with regard to commercial organics. The current law does not allow those organics to flow unimpeded to community based compost sites.
It's been very discouraging because there are so many young people, in particular, who are very excited to be environmental stewards and to develop bicycle carting businesses, and things of that sort, and they're deterred from the outset. And quite often they give up and turn to other environmental work. Hopefully we don't lose them altogether, in terms of environmental work, but it's sad that their passions get deterred at the outset.
Q: That is very sad. But there is a petition started now to change the laws?
DB: There is a petition now. Some folks are trying to get food businesses in the city to ask the city legislators to change these laws. The hope is that it will gain some force. But the problem is that there's a lot of discouragement, because it doesn't seem like the policy makers are "there", and without that kind of support it can be overwhelming.
Q: Hopefully it will work out eventually…
DB: Oh, I think it will. Things are gradually changing. One of the big problems we have had is folks who are able to stick with it and keep trying often look for ways to educate themselves about how to be community composters. And unfortunately, up until now, in the compost industry all the educational materials are geared towards commercial folks. The downside of this is that a lot of people who do community composting will go to these trainings, and they'll come back thinking that the answer to their problems is machines. So [they think] the way we can get more done is if we have a bucket loader, or we have a grinder. They start thinking the way a large commercial facility would think.
And I can tell you from personal experience that once machines show up at a site, the people disappear. That's a big problem when folks start reaching for machines, because then the other goal – to engage the public and get them involved – starts to disappear because the machines are there to do the work and the people see themselves as less relevant, and less important.
But we're just now starting to get some videos out, and some more information out, that is actually for community composters. Instead of coming from the compost industry, which really doesn't think about community composters, it's actually coming from community composters themselves. So there's more material for other community composters to work with, so that they can keep their focus on people and on community.
Wise Words Of Advice.
Q: For the final question – what advice can you give our listeners who might be starting their own community composting sites where they live?
DB: Yeah, I think I'd say a number of things. One is that it's important to find the people who are more interested in action than talking – people who're not afraid to do work with shovels and pitchforks. I think the danger sign would be that instead, people want to talk about doing a bunch of fliers, making a website, developing stickers, and planning out how to get to thirty different restaurants, or fifty different households.
One story I can tell you is that I had a couple of individuals who were very excited about doing this, and that's the road they went down. They started making all these big, huge plans that were taking months and months of planning. And I said, "Well, why don't you try doing a pickup from just one restaurant, and getting that process. Just try that for me to see if you can do that, because if you know you can't do that, then you shouldn't be making all these plans". And it turned out they couldn't do it.
So, for folks who are interested, that's a good test. And that leads to my second piece of advice, which is to start small. Many people feel like they have to have it all planned out and go big, whereas if you just start with one or two restaurants, or maybe a dozen households – see if you can do that first, and control odours and rats. And if you can, that's fantastic and you can build up and get bigger. But don't spend all this time making big plans, when really you're not able to pull off the practicalities of it all yet.
And then the last thing I would say is to be guided by a strong vision for what you want to achieve, because so many people will tell you all the different obstacles in the way. Like, "There's not enough land", you know, "You can't have odours, you can't have rats". When, if there's a strong vision which says community composting will be what we have to do in the future, because it's environmentally the most sustainable and keeps the organics as close as possible in the loop…if you just remember that vision when people say all the negative things, you can say "Well, I know that might mean it takes us longer, but we know we're going to get there". And then they can keep up their good spirits. They're on the right side of history!
Tags: community composting Compostory.org curbside collection DSNY education food scraps interview New York City ORBIS organics organics collection organics recycling podcast recycling soil health The Organic Stream urban gardens urban sustainability
Drought Special #3: Fighting A Drought: Levers for the Public Sector
In episode three of the drought special, we're in Australia to learn about the role of the public sector in preparing a country for drought, and the policies, incentives and strategies that can be put in place to help prevent and protect against it. We look at the current Australian system, soil health, incentives for compost production, farm management practices, and the need to change our systems in order to better reward and support our land managers – the stewards of the earth. Joining us are former Governor General of Australia and current Advocate for Soil Health, Major General Michael Jeffery, and co-founder of Ylad Living Soils Rhonda Daly.
Whether you're starting a garden from scratch, sprucing up your planting beds, or mulching your favorite fruit tree…we have a natural and organic premium garden soil, potting soil, mulch, or fertilizer to help your project reach its best potential. Kellogg Garden products have been dedicated to meeting the needs of gardeners for over 85 years, and we continue to provide products you can trust! Visit their website here.
Tags: agriculture Australia climate change compost debt drought environment farming green landscape policy public sector soil soil health water
Soil Crisis #1: A Need for Economic & Political Change
Episode eighteen: in this part one of a two part special, we speak with zero waste pioneer and industrial economist Robin Murray about the importance of soil as a basis for human economy, and the great chasm between what science tells us about soil's role and the existing inadequate policies for soil management that has lead to a soil crisis. We will discuss the ways in which our current economic and political models of mass production have severed the link between communities and the soil, how politicians and policy makers are reacting, and how a new circular system might integrate soil management better.
Thank you to YLAD Living Soils for making this episode possible.
YLAD Living Soils is an Australian owned company formed to supply sustainable biological, organic and humus compost fertility products and programs that support the natural balance of the physical, chemical and biological aspects of the soil, lessening the reliance on conventional chemical fertilser inputs. Find more on their website.
Photo by Maurice Chédel / CC BY
We've had a bad track record, at least in the west, with taking care of our soils, because even though our entire existence is completely locked into the soil, the link between soil and human economy is very rarely discussed. As an economist, could you give us some background into the history of our relationship with the soil and explain to us this link?
Robin Murray: Humankind has always had very close relations with the soil, but one of its problems is, as it develops, the tendency has been for a rupture to grow between them. So, one of the great divisions – we always talk about class divisions – well one of the huge divisions of human history is between cities and the country. If you take the great empires, one thesis is that empires have to feed themselves, and therefore they draw on their immediate environments in order to feed their central cities. But the tendency has been for them to deplete the areas around them so that gradually the quality of the soil decreases; and so they have to expand the empire in order to get to new places. So there's a kind of diminishing returns that sets in and is one of the forces for them to go further and further afield in order to get both the food, but also the raw materials, and so on, necessary for it. And after a bit, to actually keep control of such a vast empire means larger armies and therefore they have to be fed, and it's a cycle, which suddenly explodes. They get weakened, and a new empire starts up again. Or it just breaks open – as was the case in Europe after the end of the Roman Empire. It just broke up into smaller areas that had a different relation to the soil.
There are two exceptions to this pattern: one is China, and the second is Egypt. In the case of Egypt, why that was not affected in the same way is that their human waste was fed back and replenished the soil around them, mainly through the impacts of the floods, and the way the Nile flooded everything. And in China it was much more explicit: the human waste was gathered and has always, traditionally, been then used for fertilisation. And of course, in the early modern era here the same was true: in Britain, Cheshire and Hertfordshire became very fertile areas. And this was because of night soil, which was taken from the cities to the countryside.
And you could say that the WC was one of the big forces to rupture that connection between the human waste and soil fertility. So you've got the rupture growing so that now, as we all know, many people in the towns don't know what a chicken looks like, or where milk comes from. And this is a terrible, terrible rupture. And at the moment, it's not just the WC that stands between the humans of the town and the countryside; it is also supermarkets and these long chains of food distribution, which are also cutting it down. And so the question is, how to reconnect the two? Because they are connected – they are connected. We may not be aware of it, but we are part of the cycle. And if we deplete the soil because we take the nutrients from it without returning them to that place, we then either lose them, destroy them, put them in the wrong place, whatever… If we destroy the cycle between them – the cycle within which humans live – then, just like the Roman Empire, we will collapse from within.
In the past, we have tended to see the link as very much one where the earth is a source to be used – to be extracted from. Some people call this "natural capital", and that we've been running down our natural capital because we haven't been thinking how to maintain it. And in that sense, I think it's been a bit-piece in the human economic drama. Whereas I think what is now being recognised is that they are very much more interconnected. The human economy – the contemporary economy – is going through enormous changes, and it's moving from the twentieth century period of mass production to a much more complex, information-centred form of production and distribution.
Some people have called this, and I myself have called this, Post-Fordism. Fordism was the mass production, but we've now gone way beyond Ford. I don't think I would call it "Google-ism" either, but it's a quite different model. And this has great significance for our relationship with materials and with the soil; so that instead of looking at things relatively simply as linear flows, we are looking at them with much greater complexity. And as we see things more complexly, we see that, actually, the soil and earth fits into more complex systems, and cannot just be treated as an input, which is then producing an output.
I do think, as you say, that there is a change going on and people are beginning to realise the importance of managing the soil in a sustainable way.
RM: Yes, and as you may know I worked a lot in fair trade here, and one of the things I've learned – which has been a really profound experience – is that we have a nut company, which is called Liberation Nuts, and it's owned by the nut farmers. And the ones who do cashews are from Kerala in India, and they've almost become our educators, because they come from a Gandhian tradition, and the Gandhian tradition is very much about connecting the human beings and the soil. They send us reading, and one of them is by, sometimes people call him Ghandi's economist, which is a man called Kumarappa. And he said we have to deeply respect the soil and what it produces, and how we think about these two things. That whole Gandhian principle of changing yourself and then changing what is around you, and making sure that your technology is under your control and not controlling you – that was a voice that was drowned out by the period of mass production, in my view.
Now I think we've actually come to the other way, which I think is the Gandhian approaches, which our Indian colleagues follow. A striking example of that is with the Amish in North America. If you go to an Amish farm, there are no tractors and everything is done organically, and what is so striking is that this pre-modern form that the Amish have: regularly the productivity of their soil came out the highest in North America.
So these practices, but when married with modern information and communication technology – that's the point, it's not just to keep it like that – this is a very powerful recipe for thinking in a different way about how to produce the food for ten billion people. And I think you might say that the next revolution – the next agricultural, green revolution – is not going to be about seeds and plants and GM crops and so on, it is to be about the soil. And if we think of the soil as the object for revolution, through all these different means, then I think we've got a light in front of us to which we can direct our energy.
Do you feel that influencers, such as policy makers and politicians, realise the importance of soil when they approach waste management practices and agricultural policies?
RM: No. The answer to that from the British perspective and my experience here is that we're right at the foot of Everest on this one. I've been involved for, what, twenty years on the issue of waste. It was very difficult to get waste pushed up the agenda, to get people to think about waste; politicians and indeed the press, and so on. Very difficult. When I started in the mid-nineties, I think our recycling rate was five percent, and it just was not on the radar. Also, to be an official in the local government in the waste department: this was slightly like being in the fire brigade; it was the kind of Siberia, in terms of the hierarchy. And so, how to get people aware of, in this case the negative aspects of waste – landfill, incineration and so on. These all had extremely negative sides, let alone the positive.
So, it took five years for us in this country to move to a point where it became a national issue, and it became a national issue very much because of the negative sides of the issues around – particularly about incineration. So always, and I think it's been true of the environmental movement more generally, but very often (like with Rachel Carson), it is the negative effects which then get people involved. And we have to then think, "Okay, how could it be different?"
So the first way it happens is always local, because it is the local people who then realise that this is actually affecting them. And that is the basis, then, for saying there has to be some other alternative, and out of that, then, becomes an interest; but the next interest is in some form of recycling. But the way in which both the traditional offices, and to some extent the politicians, have then thought, is they thought "okay, well how do we prevent this from getting into landfill or, indeed, incinerators?" and they then have these targets for recycling – but actually (it's a little bit like supply-push), they don't really think "what is this going to be used for?" they just want to keep it out of their residual waste statistics; usually because there's an increasing bit of a punishment for them in financial terms.
The idea that, actually, in relation to organic waste, that it is actually precious, and that this is a resource which you must produce with quality as if you are a supplier; that you're actually responsible for the quality of your output…We want everything that one rescues from the waste to maintain not just it's original quality, but all the energy and labour that's gone into it – like rubber tires have been very well used for making basketball courts; glass has been used as a very good filtering mechanism – that's an upcycling. And in my experience of much of the waste industry, the waste politics, and the waste management by public officials – this still (in the older generation) has yet to penetrate. The younger ones – this is who we found are the potential agents for change – they young ones, who are part of the new generation, some of them see it much more ecologically. They see themselves as, kind of like farmers of waste, as stewards of waste – and not of "waste" but they are what we might call "nutrient managers", in relation to the organics side.
But still, you've got the silos of waste management, the silos of agriculture; very little do they meet, very little do they meet. And in Britain there has been more connection on the paper side, than there has been on the soil side. Soil and biowaste is still very much in the back seat here, and not even the Co2 implications of composting has been adequately taken on board – they do not become part of the discussion. So, my answer to you on that one is: there is still some way to go.
In order to affect change and influence policy makers and politicians, how do we act? Do we focus on local or national campaigns and debates?
RM: Well, I think that the way in which these big changes – because this is a big industrial change, certainly on the waste side, and possibly with agriculture there are certain similarities, certainly with the big industrial farms – when you're changing, it always changes at the margins. This is where it happens first, because the big forces of the old system are not as strong. And so you get it coming up from the base, and I think especially in Europe and North America it has been the community movement that has, since the mid-seventies, really led the way in this. And then what happens is that the first impact tends to come at the local level. And local politics has been much more about waste politics than the national level, because it's immediate and tends to be under municipal, provincial control. But once this happens, we then have a basis for moving it up to the national level.
It's much easier in places, which have proportional representation, because, then groups (either green groups or specific groups around waste issues) can then get a representation politically. And this is why Germany, for example, has been one of the leaders in terms of establishing very much more satisfactory types of recycling or nutrient management – if you like, a new circular economy. I think this is because they have, not only proportional representation, but they have very strong Lambda, so that there's considerable decentralisation. So, some of these Lambda, reflecting the work of the movements, then put these things into practice. And the results can then be seen, and they begin to join up, and then they are a force at the national level, which has to content politically with the interests of the old systems.
That's what's happened on the energy side, and it is amazing now that that is cross party. It started with the Greens, then the Social Democrats, and then the Christian Democrats took it on, and took the lead because they see the advantage, in this case, of the energy system for all sorts of interests who they represent, because it's a distributed system. So local villagers and local farmers, and so on, all have an interest in that new system. The same thing is needed on the waste side: we have to re-integrate it and distribute the interest in this new system.
As you said at the beginning, these are big industrial changes we need to make in how we run things, waste management wise, or agriculturally. We're essentially talking about a paradigm shift from our current economy to a more circular one – and do you think this new distributed economy will be able to integrate soil health and management better?
RM: Well, in principle I think it should. Amongst the features of the new economy, one is what we economists call the movement from supply-push to demand-pull; that instead of producing lots of stuff and then trying to persuade people to buy it, you're starting actually from the people and thinking how do you supply all the different things that different people want. So, you've gone beyond the mass. Now, the moment that you introduce the circular, you realise that we can't just stop at human demand because you've got to think of it as part of a cycle. And if we look at our demands on the production process like that: i.e. not pushing out, but thinking "right, how do we pull it round in a sustainable way?" we then get very different questions. And certainly when it comes to waste, we're not asking not how to get rid of the waste, but how to ensure that it goes round, how do we pull it round in a way that is sustainable and enriching. That's one difference.
The second one is that information technology has allowed us to manage very much more complex systems – that is one of its great features. And what has happened is, instead of trying to control everything from the centre, we've got the development of what is referred to as "distributed systems". The German renewable energy economy is a wonderful example, how instead of having a power station, you have multiple power stations – people's homes become a power station, the farmer's part of a power station. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of power stations, which are then aggregated through smart grids and various other mechanisms, so that they produce as much, if not more, than a single power station. This is a completely different model.
Now, traditionally, farming and agriculture has been a distributed system. I grew up on a small hill farm, and the valley was full of small hill farmers. What has happened, particularly on the more fertile areas, is that farms have become larger and larger as the twentieth century mass production model is then applied to agriculture. But I think we are moving now into the possibility of a much more distributed system of agriculture and food growing, and soil care – that is what is possible. It's not going to happen, it is a possibility, which would in that sense be similar to the energy systems developing in Germany, as against the UK.
And a third very interesting modern feature is that the so-called consumer is becoming part of production; we're becoming prosumers. Well, we know about this with food, we actually have to cook our own food (or at least, we did have). But in more and more areas, whether it be health and how we look after our health: many of the modern issues, like chronic disease, like in diabetes ninety-eight and a half percent of all treatment is done by the person who has got diabetes or their family. The same is true in education; the same is true in transport. So now people are having to design systems so that we're all actively involved. By the way, the computer of course is a wonderful example; computers are the equivalent of the textile mills of the nineteenth century, but in this case we've all got one. So, it's a highly distributed system, and once you get people involved, then you have to think, "Right, what can they contribute? How should they contribute? How do they play a part in this increasingly complex system?" It's a very exciting area. So, when we come to food and to soil: how do we ensure that the grievous divide between the city and the country does not become the chasm that is threatened, but is actually re-integrated so that we all play a part in this particular process?
We'll get into detail about the ways we can organise our ecosystems and the strategies for change in part two, but to round off this part of the discussion, can you give me some examples of how people can play a part in this system, and the opportunities you see the paradigm being changed?
RM: Well, I think part of the food movement has been about this. So, the movement for urban agriculture is gathering and is stronger in some placed than others, but, the development of gardens on roofs – is it in North Korea, which is particularly strong on this? But Nicaragua is another example of where this has happened. But it's happening now more and more, and San Francisco is strong on this. We have strong movements, and a strong tradition, of allotments here. So I think gardening, even though it may no be producing food, actually brings people in touch with the fact that you cannot treat soil as if it's a machine; that you have to do this delicately. So, everyone is learning about this.
I think on the food side there are city farms and a big city farm movement, and the community garden movement here is growing. So I think there are very interesting ways in which that is happening. And then there are all sorts of ways in which farms are being opened up to those in the city – both to go to stay there and work there, or at least to visit. So I think that's one of the big areas for reconnection.
Tags: agriculture campaigning circular economy community economics environment green social change society soil soil crisis soil health soil management sustainability waste management