Farmers and large-scale composting

August 08, 2024

Okay, this one is a little more in the weeds… so to speak! Let’s talk about large-scale composting!

FIRST OF ALL! What is composting?

Composting is doing what nature does. Farmers spread organic matter (the non-food parts of other crops, leaves, mulch, etc.) over their soil, which decomposes (magically?!) into new healthy soil - which is the bedrock of healthy organic plants. The circle of life!

Composting is uncommon in typical and industrialized grain farming, but it shouldn’t be. It does a whole lot of things that are important for soil health (which, as you know, we are ALL about).

Let’s look at the problems composting addresses (YAY! LOVE IT!), and what conventional farms (EW! YUCK!) do instead:

Soil health & fertility:

REGENERATIVE FARMS: Composting makes the soil healthier, which leads to healthier, more robust, more nutritious crops.

CONVENTIONAL, INDUSTRIALIZED FARMS: Synthetic fertilizers (the antithesis of composting) are very effective in the short term at making more and bigger plants. But in the long run, they lead to chemical runoff, soil degradation, and declining ecosystem health.
Carbon Sequestration:

REGENERATIVE FARMS: Composting turns plants into dirt. Dirt traps carbon for LONG periods of time. That’s where carbon WAS, in the ground, before we dug it up and burned it and now it’s in the air and, well, is responsible for global warming. Heard of it? SO, anything that puts carbon back in the ground is good for future generations.

CONVENTIONAL, INDUSTRIALIZED FARMS: Nothing to see here, move along folks!
Biodiversity, Disease Suppression & Beneficial Insects:

REGENERATIVE FARMS: Composting creates a rich ecosystem for beneficial critters such as earthworms that contribute to healthy soil & more resilient crops.

CONVENTIONAL, INDUSTRIALIZED FARMS: Biodiversi-what? Sorry I couldn't hear you over the sound of this Deere R4060 1,000 gallon pesticide sprayer. DIE, HEALTHY BUGS!
Water Management:

REGENERATIVE FARMS: Composting makes soil more capable of absorbing natural rainfall, reducing the impact of both droughts and floods.

CONVENTIONAL, INDUSTRIALIZED FARMS: In Illinois in 2023, the problem of soil failing to absorb water was so bad that several miles of I-57 went underwater. Crop damage was in the millions of dollars and a lot of people lost their homes. Yikes!