Comment on "Forget the pig is an animal - treat him just like a machine in a factory" | Source: Washington Post
usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 5 months agoLargely with the same types of fertilizer used today, but counterintuitively much less synthetic fertilizer due to removing the large amount of feed grown. That’s even compared to using as much manure as possible
Thus, shifting from animal to plant sources of protein can substantially reduce fertilizer requirements, even with maximal use of animal manure
qyron@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Synthetic fertilizers are essentially processed oil and we already know what the extraction, transport, processing and distribution of it entails.
Integrated farming, where animals are integral parts of a well planned farm operation present more advantages than drawbacks.
Animals help in manage soil and landscape (by eating plants that can easily out compete or swarm cultivation areas), can combat pests (chickens and other birds will eat pests naturally present in the soil and areate it in the process), provide fertilizer and can even compost and correct it (chickens and pigs can be used to turn manure piles), which implies less machinery employed.
Goats and sheep are superb at managing dry vegetation or any kind of foliage that can present a fire hazard. Pigs are natural soil plowers, capable of removing stones, stumps and deep roots. Chickens are good to level and clear soil, very fast, and excel at keep tree roots clean of weeds. Angola chickens can clear a field from ticks and other potential parasites very fast.
We do have other sources of soil nutrients that do not entail processing oil but the farmers are often not aware or unreceptive to it.
usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Yes, but it takes less synthetic fertilizer overall at scale per the earlier source even compared to using maximum amount of manure possible
qyron@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
The first issue we need to take is synthetic synthetic fertilizer.
We already recognize oil is more of a source of problems than anything else: runaway methane leaks at the wells, soil polution, water polution, spills during transport, high energy consumption for processing, etc.
Manures are already available elements that only need to be reintegrated into the soil.
Composting operations also greatly benefit by having manures added to it (and manures technically require composting before use) as the bacteria from the animals digestive tract help breakdowm the material.
And yes, crop rotation and field management are essential but the more tried and tested techniques and resources we can use to shake away our dependency of oil, the better.
One lesser known source of nitrogen and phosphorous very under used: waste water management plants muds. Many countries are still sending precious resource for landfills.