permaculture

["L. Santoyo" <santoyo@earthflow.com>]

***Practical Guidance on the Use of Urine in Crop Production: **A Review, *
*Urine in Recent Popular Culture, and **Other Urine Recycling Resources*
 *-by John Valenzuela, Oct 2010*


 *Practical Guidance on the Use of Urine in Crop Production: A Review*
 The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), a non-profit research institute
based in Sweden, launched it's latest publication September, 2010: *Practical
Guidance on the Use of Urine in Crop Production, *SEI EcoSanRes Series,
2010-11, Authors: Richert, A., Gensch, R., Jönsson, H., Stenström, T-A.,
Dagerskog, L., produced by the Ecological Sanitation Research Programme
(EcoSanRes) of SEI.
 Download the complete 54 page publication here (1.66MB):
 *sei-international.org/.../Air.../ecosan-urine-in-crops-100824%20web.pdf*

 The authors, researchers from Europe, Africa and Philippines, have
presented the guide in three parts:
 Part 1 introduces generic information and recommendations for the use of
urine in crop production, dealing with the biological, physical, and some of
the social issues, with examples of various vegetable, grain or fruit crops
grown in Europe, Africa, India, or Central America, strategies regarding
application, treatment and sanitation, handling systems, gender aspects,
institutional aspects, how to conduct crop experiments, and web-based
calculation tools.

 Part 2, details how to develop site specific and culturally appropriate
local guidelines, based on the Productive Sanitation Approach, including
Risk Management using World Health Organizaton's Multi-barrier approach.
Part 3 gives an example of a local guideline from Niger.

 Beyond the casual urination on the compost pile, or use of diluted urine in
the root zone of garden trees, this publication looks at the systematic and
widespread adoption of urine as a major nutrient input to local food
systems. Although it addresses safety issues due to pathogens and drug
contamination in human waste, the latter issue may be of more concern in the
US, with the common use of large quantities of a wide range of
pharmaceuticals.

 It describes in detail an example from Burkina Faso of an extensive system
of community scale urine (and feces) collection, storage (to reduce
pathogens- one month for urine, two months for feces), and redistribution to
agricultural use. In this program, 1000 urine separating toilets were
distributed, 100 artisans were trained to build them, 1000 gardeners were
trained to use the renamed end products, with collection by donkey cart
every 2 weeks, employing over two dozen people, though the economics have
not proven sustainable at this point. Perhaps the various community benefits
of such a nutrient cycling program which are outlined are worth subsidizing.

 Even on a smaller neighborhood or family scale, there is much useful
information and inspiration to gain from this publication.

 The EcoSanRes Programme has published many research papers as a series,
see:
 http://www.sei-international.org/publications?pid=1516
 Related to the most recent publication, is the 2004  *Guidelines for the
safe use of urine and faeces in ecological sanitation systems*. Download
here:
 http://www.ecosanres.org/pdf_files/ESR_Publications_2004/ESR1web.pdf

 They also have a great poster (available in spanish too), *Closing the Loop
on Sanitation: ecological sanitation on a rural/single-story dwelling scale*
*, *see:
 http://www.ecosanres.org/pdf_files/ClosingTheLoop-printquality-A4.pdf


 *Urine in Recent Popular Culture.*
 Over the past few years, there has been several popular magazine, newspaper
articles highlighting the efficacy of using urine as a fertilizer, all based
on the ground breaking research results being published by the Finland based
University of Kuopio, Environmental Microbiology Research Group, Department
of Env. Science, authored by Helvi Heinonen-Tanski and Surendra Pradhan
(originally from Nepal). See:
 http://www.uku.fi/microbiology/publications.shtml

 Some of the popular coverage:
 The Washington Post, *Human Urine Safe, Productive Fertilizer*, By Carolyn
Colwel, HealthDay Reporter, Monday, October 8, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801028.html

 Scientific American,*"P" is for plants: Human urine plus ash equals tomato
fertilizer, study says*, By John
Matson<http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/index.cfm?author=1237>Sep
4, 2009,

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=p-is-for-plants-human-urine-plus-as-2009-09-04

 National Geographic, *Human Pee With Ash Is a Natural Fertilizer, Study
Says*, by Charles Choi, for National Geographic
News<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/>,
September 18, 2009,

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090918-urine-ash-fertilizer_2.html

 and the latest from Scientific American, on growing beets with urine: *Gee
Whiz: Human Urine Is Shown to Be an Effective Agricultural Fertilizer*, By 
Mara
Grunbaum <http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=2474> July 23,
2010,

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-urine-is-an-effective-fertilizer&page=2

 And now most of us know that since May 2009, even NASA's astronauts are
drinking their own (purified) urine, cost: only $250 million. I guess 92%
water recovery is cheaper than hauling 'fresh' earth water, while they
'throw away' the nutrients, see:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3461488/NASA-astronauts-to-drink-their-own-urine.html

 Innocent daytime TV audiences may have been accidentally introduced to the
idea of 'pee buckets' for garden use, when it was mentioned by young actress
(and permaculture certificate design course graduate) Ellen Page on the
Ellen Degeneres show last year, see this great clip:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGy7gQ4ufBc

 *Other Urine Recycling Resources:            *
 My first discovery that urine actually contains more nutrients to reuse
than humanure does (depending on diet, nearly 10 times more nitrogen, up to
twice as much phosphorus, and about five times more potassium), was when I
first read John Beeby's *Future Fertillty, Transforming Human Waste Into
Human Wealth*(1995), published by Ecology Action (the Bio-Intensive/John
Jeavons folks), available here:
 http://www.bountifulgardens.org/prodinfo.asp?number=BEA-0340

 The relative ease of handling urine for reuse is clear, as seen in Joseph
Jenkins' clever and well researched humanure bible, *The Humanure Handbook -
A Guide to Composting Human Manure, 3rd edition*, which deals with the many
issues relating to the more biologically active solid waste. See:
 http://humanurehandbook.com/index.html

 My favorite literary introduction to the long time use of urine in the
garden (ethno-urinology?), is the humorous and informative *Liquid Gold: The
Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants,*byCarol Steinfeld, wonderfully
illustrated by Malcolm Wells. In addition to the book, this website also
offers her 'Urine Charge' stickers and coffee mugs, see:
 http://www.liquidgoldbook.com/

 Steinfeld has also authored the related books: *Reusing the
Resource:Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling*, and *The Composting
Toilet System Book*, see:
 http://www.carol-steinfeld.com/

 There is a growing global alliance of human waste recyclers, The
Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA), a network of organizations
(currently 125 from 45 countries) sharing a common vision of sustainable
sanitation, see:
 http://www.susana.org/lang-en/about-us

 While protecting our health and nutrient cycles, let us gracefully 'Grow
with the Flow'. . . .
 JV

 Cornucopia Food Forest Gardens
 Nursery, Rare Fruit Tastings
 John Valenzuela Permaculture Services
 Horticulturist, Consultant, Educator-
 e-mail: johnvalenzuela@hotmail.com
 phone: (415) 246-8834