An upcoming sequel to the manual "Beyond Compost" which is about converting organic waste beyond compost using worms.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Food from Wastes
"Beyond Compost" was a manual to fill a gap between the small under-counter worm bin and the huge commercial vermiculture operations involved with industrial wastes.
"Beyond Compost, +" goes beyond composting basics, beyond vermiculture, and beyond the application of VermiCompost to soil gardening and the use of VermiJuice in "soil-less agriculture" or hydroponics indoors.
It adds Biochar to the blend.
The concept will be that in order for us to feed 9.5 Billion people on the earth we will have to provide more food and use more sustainable methods. With a mere 6 Billion of us to feed, we are currently falling short of enough, by 37,000 human lives lost to malnutrition and starvation every day. That is obviously not a sustainable fact of "life".
Our present methods involve enormous areas of land growing monocultures of plants that must be packaged and shipped long distances to markets, sometimes crossing oceans and sometimes flying through the air to retain freshness. There is not enough good land to continue this practice. Water is a limited resource. Current irrigation with drinking water is not sustainable. Distribution and packaging costs put much of our food out of the reach of 86% of our current population that makes less than $2 a day. Yes, I said "our" population. This is a global challenge for global thinkers.
Most of the people in the world live in or near cities of at least 500,000 population. It makes sense to grow food as close as possible to these markets. Even better, food can be grown inside these population centers.
Why is this important to you?
Remember the silly remark, "Let them eat cake"? Hungry people are not reasonable people. They are not happy people. They don't like people who seem to have too much when they have too little. Our best security and safety policy will come from accepting this reality and changing our behavior.
The first step will be for you to become familiar with the success stories of people who have arrived at solutions. The wheels have been invented!
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