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  • From: Art Petrzelka <art AT complum.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>, pam AT twinoaks.org
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Manure and Organic Standards
  • Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 18:38:15 -0500

On Saturday 05 July 2003 16:10, pam AT twinoaks.org wrote:
> the Organic Standards. Recently I was asked the reason why
> manure can't be used (uncomposted) in organic veg gardens.

Liz gave an excellent answer in her reply. Let me add some items not directly
related to the NOP.

Making compost burns nitrogen. If you apply raw manure, it will compost in
the
soil, taking nitrogen away from the crop until it turns into compost.
Decomposition has a higher priority than crop growth for available nitrogen.
The second year, you will see an increase in total fertility that is greater
than that accounted for by the manure, as it releases nutrients from the soil
that were unavailable before.

Opinion: The NOP may wish to forestall manure runoff problems on organic land
similar to those on conventional crops. Even if you aren't certified organic,
there are limits to how much manure you can put on per acre. A farmer needs a
Manure Management Plan if he is raising above a certain number of livestock.
He must show that he has enough land available for manure spreading and show
the application schedule.

Manure spills are an ugly fact of current corporate farming practice. With
farms becoming more specialized, it is much less common to find a farm that
creates its own crop inputs. It used to be common to find farms that raised
their own grain and forage for the livestock, which generated manure for
fertilizer. For instance, when I was a kid, my Dad had a 30 head beef brood
herd, 200 feeder cattle, 100-150 feeder pigs, and 200 chickens. The brood
herd had its own pasture, so they took care of spreading manure in the
summer. We would spread manure from the feeder and chicken operations on land
intended for crops. All on 187 tillable acres.

Today, even the breakpoints for large livestock operations would have been
unthinkable. I don't remember the current limits, but 1,000 head of cattle
sticks in my mind. 10,000 head feeder pig facilities, 5,000 head cattle
feedlots and 100,000 head poultry operations are all far too common. I heard
about a 2.5 million head chicken operation being planned on the Mid-Atlantic
seaboard recently.

Since much of this manure is liquified from slurry pits below the confinement
buildings, or sludge from a settling pond, they are spread on in a form that
can run off much easier than the straw-matted manure that we pitched onto a
manure spreader by hand.

Note that the rules still allow most of the old operations. March is a good
time in Iowa to spread manure. The manure is thawed out in the barns, the
fields aren't completely thawed yet, and you only have to wait until July to
harvest a crop raised in direct contact with the manure and still be legal.
--
Art Petrzelka
2966 126th Street
Amana, Iowa 52203
home: 319/227-7015
cell: 319/521-2219
email: art AT complum.com




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