Features
It's not all waste!
Where there’s muck, there’s money - a well known phrase from a bygone age or a message for the future? Large sums of money were paid by individuals in oriental cities up to the early part of the last century to city councils for the right to collect urban organic waste, including night soils. This recycling of all urban organic waste by the surrounding farmers was described by F.H. King during the early 1900s as the basis of 40 centuries of continuous farming by humans through soil fertility built on compost. This was in effect a closed loop system, modelled on nature and infinitely sustainable.
My own personal experience in the first half of this decade as a large scale organic vegetable grower on hungry sandy soils in a harsh sub-Saharan environment brought home the difficulty in managing fertility for organic growers. Demand from supermarkets for product (or they would source it elsewhere) and the ever present bottom line were additional pressures. Compost, along with the careful use of green manure crops was the key in building soil fertility and enhancing production. A 20,000 tonne compost production unit was developed to maintain fertility on the 1,000 acre Soil Association certified organic unit. Visits to Austria to purchase a tractor-pulled compost turner and to receive training on composting and humus management included field trips to decentralised composting facilities on farms. These field trips led to the basis of my MSc research thesis a number of years later.
Loss of Organic Matter
Organic waste management in the 20th century was based on land-filling along with all other waste streams. Land-filling organic waste is problematic because important nutrients are dumped in the waste stream, the waste is not stable as the greenhouse gas methane is produced and the ground water may be impacted. Organic waste, when land-filled is a loss of productive capacity of the land (non-return of nutrients). While chemical fertilisers have reduced this impact, their long term use is not sustainable and does not address soil organic matter depletion. This depletion of soil organic matter is a net contributor to increased atmospheric carbon levels and a global warming source.
Dr. Elaine Ingham describes compost as oxidatively decomposed organic matter, which means oxygen must be incorporated into the carbon compounds being modified during the composting process. There will be variable conditions in a compost heap/windrow, some anaerobic, but the majority of a compost heap should ideally be aerobic. Maximum diversity in the initial starting materials is extremely important in order to have many different foods and minerals present and to have the maximum diversity of organisms in the compost.
Growers are well aware that the full benefit of compost for soil application is in its biological vibrancy and diversity and thus a richly diverse microbial aerobic compost is required for the aerobic soil environment of the grower. Anaerobic compost lacks the aerobic biological life (as it is a product of an anaerobic process) that really benefits the soil. For the MSc research, composting means aerobic composting typically utilising tractor PTO driven or self-propelled compost windrow turners.
Austrian Model
Decentralised composting is well developed in Austria, where agriculture is integrated in the urban waste management plan, through separated waste stream collection and composting. In Austria, 350 farmers compost over 45% (271,000 tonnes) of the collected organic municipal waste, with a small number of larger farm plants having a capacity of greater than 5,000 tonnes/year and over 300 smaller farm plants having a 50-2,000 tonne/year capacity. Over 35% of the total compost produced is used in agriculture, whilst amongst the composting farmers the compost is applied over 75% of the land. The decentralised agricultural composting models are thus based on a closed loop system, imitating nature and inherently possessing important environmental and carbon sequestering benefits.
Most of the farmers involved in the decentralised composting systems in Austria are members of Agricultural Composting Association, which support a variety of cooperative network strategies linking them to each other and to the other stakeholders involved. There are separate organisations for the larger industrial compost facility members and also for those farmers involved in biogas production with its anaerobic compost by-product.
The key driver in this innovative initiative was an enlightened and visionary political approach where policies and legislation supported innovation through local initiatives, encouraging the development of local situation specific organic municipal waste management systems and creating the entrepreneurial environment for the key actors to emerge. Those involved developed relationships and organisational models to interpret, implement and deliver the policy that had a multisector and multi-actor benefit.
Each of the actors had the willingness to look outside their core strength to develop the synergy of the cooperative network, thus becoming further dependent on each other due to their collective investment in the network.
Far-Reaching Benefits
Decentralised on-farm composting has the potential to positively impact on common issues across a range of currently topical government policies and strategies. These include:
- Environmental policy
- Waste management policy
- Rural development policy
- Agricultural policy
- Farm diversification strategies
- Rural income improvement strategies
The research has shown that actors’ core strategies were impacted upon positively. The local council generally found it to be cheaper than land-filling the organic waste as land-fill life was prolonged. Composting can be a viable revenue source for farmers, both in tipping fees, reduced external fertiliser costs and in sales of the final compost product, especially when the composting component fits well with the existing farm operations. As a farm income diversification policy it has contributed, on average a third of on-farm income to the farmers involved. This extra income in circulation in a rural community impacts positively on sustainable rural development strategies, improved environmental compliance and efficiencies in waste management strategy.
Market Analysis
For the successful adoption of the decentralised cooperative network model, a close examination of three indicators in establishing the feasibility of decentralised composting in any region/area must be carried out:
- Market Demand Analysis and Marketing: With the huge potential output volume of composted organic municipal waste (The UK forecasts an agricultural market for compost of 148 million tonnes/yr) it is imperative that the greatest potential end-user be involved from the outset (and not just end up as the final customer). This is the farmer and having farmers involved in the composting process from the outset ensures that demand is met, quality is maintained and marketing costs are minimised. The research showed that farmers utilise the majority of the compost produced, hence ensuring the best quality compost is produced as the source of fertility for their soil and to benefit their crop and livestock production.
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Successful incorporation of lessons from existing decentralised compost network models examining:
- Technical aspects
- Financial aspects
- Institutional and organisational aspects
- Social and capacity building aspects
- A full social, environmental and economic evaluation of decentralised composting approaches versus centralised systems for a particular region/area is critical in allowing the key goals of a biowaste management strategy to be met effectively.
Local Co-operation
The scale and competitive advantages gained from the collective activities of the co-operative networks involving the Austrian Agricultural Composting Association has created the capacity to compete with the industrial (centralised) compost sector through:
- The role of co-operation
- Strong collective institutions
- Entrepreneurial skills
- Achieving strong economies of scale
- Skilled labour
The models based on extensive practical research have developed successful diverse co-operative network models that provide a sustainable and effective policy delivery mechanism. The key sustainable factors are:
- Decentralised on-farm solutions, where possible, to the waste management problem means that the waste is transported as little as possible. It can be processed and utilised on-site. It is visible to the residents of the area who understand it and identify themselves with it ensuring the highest quality compost is produced.
- Flexible solutions i.e. use the structures which already exist e.g. farmers.
- Natural solutions i.e. working with methods of the lowest possible intervention to the natural process. Educating the farmer on effective efficient compost process management, utilising existing farm resources and tractor pulled compost turners ensures close contact with the product. Many farm composting facilities are in the farmyard and relatively close to the dwelling house, so effective and efficient process management is of paramount importance.
- Economic solutions: for any region/area, the best return on the investment of the farmer, householder and municipality must be sought. Therefore, an integrated regional policy could have a mixture of home composting, decentralised and centralised composting with transportation at a minimum.
Carbon Sink
The EU Directive 99/31/CE, “The Landfill Directive” requires from all EU states, a sharp reduction of landfilled biodegradable waste (biowaste) over the coming years. The following targets have been set (with reference to 1995 levels) by:
- 25% by 16 July 2006
- 50% by 16 July 2009
- 65% by 16 July 2016
Composting is a part of the suggested hierarchy of approaches outlined in this directive. Carbon sequestration is an important current economic topic with carbon trading and carbon credits being discussed at an EU and global level. Compost builds levels of soil organic matter, a key carbon sink. A sustained 1-2 % rise in soil organic matter levels worldwide would eliminate atmospheric carbon build-up.
Modern farming is no longer just about food production. The modern farmer is a mix of food producer, environmental custodian and services provider. In Austria, on-farm composting generates significant additional on-farm income, reduces fertiliser costs and contributes significantly to farm fertility. Interestingly, the research highlighted that 28% of respondents were organic/biodynamic farmers! So… can the Austrian decentralised composting models provide a vehicle to profitably benefit fertility management for organic growers in Ireland?
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