With the entire world focused on the possibility of radioactive air coming from Japan, I wanted to highlight a health concern regarding our earth. Not the Earth that we live on, but the earth under our feet.
Healthy earth, or soil, contains humus - a dark-brown organic compound derived from decomposed plant and animal remains and excrement. This differs greatly from the only other hummus I was previously aware of, which is a tasty East Indian dip made from chickpeas.
I know what some of you are thinking, "This humus sounds an awful lot like compost." Bingo.
Humus, like compost, improves the water retaining properties of soil, adds nutrients, and makes it more workable, but much of the world's soil has become too overworked to retain this valuable component. This is especially true in "the old world," or Europe, where planting and harvest has been taking place for thousands of years.
Not all the research into compost-fertilized soil is being done in Europe, however. In the Amazon, farmers are burning and burying human and animal excrement, fish bones, and plant material in an effort to create black earth, or humus-rich soil. Researchers have developed a product called Bio-char, compost mixed with charcoal, in an attempt to mimic this effect.
Farmers in Cairo, Egypt are raising crops that can withstand dust storms and extremely low rain fall by building up their soil's humus levels. These desert farmers use animal manure, settlement from the Nile, and algae to make their compost.
In Brazil, farmers are developing a zero-tillage method of farming where ploughing is avoided by direct planting. It is hoped that this method will help overcome damage done over decades of intensive agricultural processes, leading to a substantial erosion problem.
Brazil also uses compost on their farmland. The Brazilian government employs an accelerated composting method at landfills, wherein garbage is separated and all compostable material is put into huge vats. Heat and oxygen are applied vigorously to the vats, which turns the material into compost at a faster rate than regular methods.
These countries have one thing in common: overworked crop land that has been devastated by conventional agricultural methods. They have discovered that regular fertilizer has slowly killed the life of their soil, destroying micro-organisms and earth worms that contribute to a healthy, humus-rich soil. They also want to reduce waste - 40 percent of our garbage is compostable material.
We may have a long way to go before our soil loses its natural humus, but we can learn from these innovative countries and nature now to prevent future soil deficiencies and overcrowded landfills.
For those wishing to learn more about composting, a workshop is being held at the Co-op Home Centre on March 26.
