Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[<pbunch@cox.net>]

John:

There are pathways to man in any system that uses human waste. Splash from 
water or soil to leaf, leaf to mouth is one pathway. Ways WHO recommends 
breaking or impeding this pathway is by using such untreated waste water in 
sub-irrigation systems and on tree crops which bare at a height above the 
ground sufficient to avoid splash. They also recommend washing, disinfecting 
and cooking. Combinations are generally preferred to single measures.

It may well be that there are currently no populations of significant water 
borne pathogens such as typhoid, cholera, amoebic dysentery, leptospirosis, 
giardia etc in your area. Also, you and others that consume your produce may 
already have had infections by the more minor critters like rotovirus and are 
now resistant or have immunity. 

Here in Colombia there are significant populations of water borne pathogens 
and great care is required. Rotovirus still kills a lot of kids here from low 
income and rural families that do not have good access to medical services 
and whose families have not learned how to deal with the dysentery it causes. 
The mass implementation of human waste usage in agriculture would create a 
very different situation in Ireland and all over the "developed" world. 

I lived in rural Canada for a while and we were drinking from a shallow well. 
I got the worst case of dysentery you can imagine. This alerted me to the 
realities of water borne pathogens :-(

All this is not in any way to discourage closing the nutrient loop under 
discussion. It is just to suggest that we need to look carefully at HOW we do 
it.

Phil
 


---- John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net> wrote: 
> 
> In my experience I think that pathogens are not at all a problem. We have a 
> septic tank overflowing into a small water purification area. I have seen 
> all kinds of animals drink from that water at different places and not one 
> sign of disease has been seen.
> Under good circumstances pathogens are eaten out of a living by an 
> overwhelming mass of non pathogens. The only way you can select for 
> pathogens is by using man made chemicals that often kill off the others. 
> And 
> onfortunately that is the paradigm we have been fed with our mother's milk. 
> Don't try to kill bacteria for you will fail and don't be too clean so as 
> to 
> keep plenty of non pathogen species on standby.
> 
> The water that comes out of the wetland shows no signs of nitrate or 
> phosphate loss. It is clear and even in little pools no algae show up.
> 
> We harvest plants like comfrey and bullrush there and maybe 10 more species 
> for animal food. Again never seen a problem and how could it? Pathogens are 
> not taken up by plants in a cold swamp to be transported to an edible part. 
> That simply does not happen.
> john
> 
> > Several people on the list have mentioned the use of human waste for 
> > agricultural purposes. I'm interested in what peoples experience has been 
> > with this and what kinds of precautions people are taking to break the 
> > pathogen-human cycles in order to avoid disease transmission. The World 
> > health Organization has done a lot of work on this and their guidelines 
> > are available online. 
> > http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/wastewater/gsuww/en/index.html
> >
> > This appears to me to be one of the crucial linkages that will have to be 
> > established in a steady state economy. Nutrient recycling is a 
> > fundamental 
> > ecosystem function/service which must be integrated in the closed 
> > human-earth system. Of course pathogens have evolved to exploit this 
> > system and we have to assure a reasonable level of safety.
> >
> > Phil Bunch
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> 
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