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There's also the limitations of the nitrogen cycle. Organic fertilizer is generally cow poop. Cows are fed almost exclusively grain corn (and then are admitted
by estsauver 6y ago
There's also the limitations of the nitrogen cycle.
Organic fertilizer is generally cow poop.
Cows are fed almost exclusively grain corn (and then are admittedly grass finished, but generally the manure you could get is from the grain feed period.)
That grain corn is... made with inorganic fertilizer.
To keep making more food, someone has to introduce nitrogen into the system. You can use bat guano (which we actually used to use before inorganic fertilizer) or you can use nitrogen fixing crops (great but typically fix much less nitrogen into the soil then people think!) or something that comes from inorganic fertilizer, whether it's been green washed through a cow's GI tract.
It's also a logistical nightmare as it's much less dense, but that's a separate problem. A huge fraction of the problems of soil health in rural places are logistical.
- phkahler 6y ago>> To keep making more food, someone has to introduce nitrogen into the system. Isnt that the job of nitrogen fixing bacteria? You know, the microbes that probably dont do so well in modern farm soil. Presumably that's part of the reason crops do well in the organic plots.
- eppp 6y agoWe run our cows entirely on grass and hay throughout their time on our farm. Typically we sell calves at 700lbs. Then they may go to feedlots and taste corn for the first time.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- KaiserPro 6y agoDepends on how you look at it. In the UK, we have a terrible problem with runoff. Its not that we don't have enough nitrogen to put on the fields, its that the soil is so degraded that when it rains it all runs off into ditches and eventually out to sea. In the netherlands its even more pronounced. There are cow farmers that have bought land especially for dumping effluent on. So its not a problem of enough, its a problem of keeping it in the right place.
- estsauver 6y agoCertainly, much of the developed world uses too much.