Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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    • I was responsible for the design, initiation, supervision and development of farmers in the UK which composted municipal and industrial wastes on a variety of scales from 1000 tonnes pa to 125,000 tones per annum, for recycling by composting for use on their own land. The effect on crop production took time to build the SOM (soil organic matter) but heavy dressings did reduce drought stress, cultivation energy and crop disease, and did increase crop yield and consistency., while reducing, and in some cases eliminating purchase of manufactured fertilisers. So - this is Closing the Loop and potentially eliminating the purchase and use of manufactured N fertiliser and the energy (and CO") involved in that production. This group was set up on a Reverse Franchise basis, i.e. the franchisees owned the franchisors and it was the professionals in the centre who took the legal responsibility which enabled small farmers to co-operate on big projectswithout risk to their sovereignty over their own land.

      I am now working in collaboration with NIAB (National Institute of Agricultural Botany, University of Cambridge, UK) on again looking to eliminate the purchase and use of manufactured fertilisers by using MNPs ()micro and nano plastics).

      Now working on trials with NIAB (National Institute of Agricultural Botany, University of Cambridge, UK) on using MNP’s (micro and nano plastics) which contain Nitrogen nutrient with the objective of managing MNPs and using them as fertilisers instead of manufactured N which, of course, takes very significant energy in manufacture. There are also implications for managing MNP’s which do not have N in the molecule. 

       

       

    • Water scarcity and Closed Loop Recycling of Wastes

      High organic matter soils are reservoirs for water and that reservoir can be made bigger thus making irrigation water go 5 or even 10 times further. As the world gets more populated, it produces more agricultural and urban wastes. As it gets richer, it produces more urban wastes. For the human race to survive, we have to recycle these wastes. Most, if not all crop wastes, and many (most in some areas) urban wastes can be recycled using aerobic digestion, i.e. “composting” and TAD (Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion – pumping air in to raise the temperature). It is easy to accept that crop wastes from farming, or green wastes from urban gardens can be composted, but so can many industrial wastes.

      Take hard plastics out of consideration, they are difficult but many plastics can be successfully recycled. For example, urea-formaldehyde is the “glue” used to make boards for furniture manufacture and discarded chip-board and MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) and, when shredded, are a very useful source of Nitrogen fertiliser and are helpful in composting other materials. Another example is a “base” plastic (used to manufacture a wide range of glues and consumer product plastics) is PVA – Polyvinyl alcohol. This is “rocket fuel” for the micro-organisms in a compost heap but it is not easy to handle. It is liquid at temperatures above 60 or 70 degrees C but becomes progressively sticky as it cools.

      Much easier to handle are materials such as crop residues, green wastes from urban gardens or city arboricultural management, cardboard and tissues and some industrial wastes. A good source of Nitrogen fertiliser is sewage and thorough composting above 60 degrees C will control pathogens. (Turn the heap every few days until it gets to 60 degrees, turn again and get up to 60. Three or four times up to 60 will dramatically reduce pathogen transfer risk.)

      I shall soon be introducing a regular series on a page at https://landresearchonline.com/ 

       

       

    • Composts made from urban wastes will hold between 5 and ten times their own weight of water. Taking urban wastes can also earn cash. So, take the wastes, compost them and create sub-surface layers ass “top soil reservoirs”. See details in How to make on-farm composting work and Reversing global warming for profit both by Bill Butterworth and published by MX Publishing, London.

      Bill Butterworth

      The Director

      Land Research Ltd

      [email protected]

      Blog at www.landresearchonline.com

      Skype bill.butterworth15

      Mobile and voice mail 079 500 37 153

       

    • In the now-developed West, the change from subsistence farming to surplus production was dramatically accelerated by Harry Ferguson’s development of a three point linkage giving weight transfer – cultivations, weed control and husbandry greatly improved, land was released from feeding horses and labour reduced and progressively made available to the urban economy.

      Today, in developing farm production in poor countries, manufactured fertiliser costs are high and, because of energy costs, will not get lower in time. Making fertiliser by composting urban wastes is an available technology which provides nutrients, reduces cultivation costs, reduces irrigation need, and progressively lowers crop diseases. It also provides a chargeable service to the urban economy. This “closed loop” economy sees urban wastes as a resource which can provide that trigger for rapid change and development, and is described in detail in “Survival; sustainable energy, wastes, shale gas and the land” by Bill Butterworth and available free for download at Amazon

    • The following is an over-simplification of the problems facing developing food production technology and delivery but there is a matter to be shared in this topic and that is in closed-loop nutrition, i.e. using urban wastes to provide the fertiliser to feed the people who produce the waste.  Wastes contain a wider range, and larger amounts of trace elements than mineral fertilisers and, in effect, are Carbon neutral in production.  (Bear in mind that UN-sponsored research showed that the electrical energy to make 1 tonne of Nitrogen nutrient in a modern USA factory is 21,000 kWh!)  The human race has to take the urban waste route to nutrition if it is to survive.  See the evidence and practical record of how it has been done safely in “Survival” by Bill Butterworth, Amazon and Kindle.

    • There is nothing more important, nothing more effective, nothing more economical and long-lasting than educating the farmer in how to manage his ever-changing circumstances and environment  to achieve sustainability for his family.

      Bill Butterworth

      The Director

      Land Research Ltd