Creating greater success in commercial food composting may call for our broadening our vision, our perspective.

I am suggesting that our well being as a species is dependant upon our co-creating with all species, working together in harmony. That starts with our realizing that the other species are also part of our team, and "TEAM" means Together Everybody Achieves More; with those other species, including the microbes. Composting is also about creating a sustainable food supply, essential to our health.  

IF we want vibrant health, we need to eat healthy food, and healthy food can only come from healthy soil, soil with abundant organic matter and a thriving soil food web, made up of trillions of benefical naturally occuring microbes.

I have the illusion that success in commercial food composting depends on our working together, including working together with the microbial master composters, as well as the ‘human’ members of our team. We’re set up to do direct estimates of the population of active and total bacteria and fungi. In the case of active bacteria, we go through "serial dilutions", then stain with Fluorsescein Diacetate, and actually count under Epi-fluorescent microscopy. While oxygen consumption is a good indicator of microbial activity, the assaying takes it a step further.

Have some people lost perspective, or never even considered the possibility that we are not the dominant force on the planet, that we are part of a complex matrix, and that we’ve been naive in our neglecting the important role that other life forms play in the complex matrix? The mighty earthworm is a vital partner in maintaining healthy soil.

Human beings may have more ability to disrupt the natural balances, matrix; to create wars and nuclear weapons, cause radio-active contamination on a massive scale, because we’ve failed to appreciate natural systems, failed to have the wisdom to co-create for our common good, rather than to try to dominate others. We’ve created waste and pollution in many forms, endangering our future. We can change that.

Industrialized agriculture has been a pathetic failure, killing the soil food web with their chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, creating genetic chaos with GMO’s, which may be creating irreversible damage, endangering our future. Today’s high cancer rates are directly related to human beings fouling our environment, including killing the soil food web so that today the "food" from industrialized agriculture is grossly lacking in nutritional value, unable to sustain healthy people, while those same chemicals are poisoning us. Industrialized agriculture is not sustainable. Our survival and thriving depend on returning to Organic, and becoming stewards of the soil, and the rest of our environment.

Is that why so many people are shifting to an organic plant based diet? Is there an association to The Gerson Therapy, which has been effectively CURING cancer and most other diseases for over 75 years, based on an organic plant based diet?

I have read that there is far more bio-mass on planet earth in bacteria than there is in people. Most of those bacteria are vital to sustainability. Without the trillions of bacteria in our digestive track, digesting our breakfast, lunch and dinner, we could not survive for more than a few days.

In composting, our operating team includes people, and just as important, our operating team includes the naturally occurring micro-organisms that do the actual composting. While those micro-organisms are not on conventional payroll, they work 24/7, Sundays and holidays, and we are totally dependant upon them to compost the feedstock. Maybe our recognizing the vital role of the microbes is a key to our success.

While we cannot see the microbes, oxygen or CO2, we focus on optimizing the working conditions for the microbes. Optimizing a composting business requires a holistic approach. I am guessing that whenever you see or hear of a composting business that has problems, they are failing to give adequate attention to a vital part of the whole.

We started developing our compost research silo lab in the Fall of 1999, and it has evolved since then, as a very practical tool enabling us to get first hand, hands-on answers to practical questions. On April 2nd, 2010, we put into service our first "Super Tall Compost Research Silo" which can hold compost up to 97½" deep. It may not be fancy, but it does give us a practical tool and invaluable data. The photo to the right shows our first "Super Tall Compost Research Silo" which has already started enabling us to get invaluable first hand data; knowledge about how much vacuum is required to pull air through the compost at various rates.  -0.085"wc has been moving the air through the compost at 2.6 times the volume of the compost, per hour, with the moisture content of the compost being 62%.  -6.0"wc moved the air at a rate of 80X, with compost 96" deep.  This is not theory.  This is the data we've gotten from hands on research, the kind of data that we feel is vital to responsibly manage the composting process.

IF you’re the kind of person who would like to be part of a synergistic team dedicated to making this a much better world, creating abundance for all, massively improving our environment, and the quantity of high quality food for all, let’s talk. Please contact us.

John Crockett, CEO
other Nature’s Farms
Carmel, New York
jac@magicsoil.com
http://www.magicsoil.com
http://www.magicsoil.com/success
1 (845) 225-7763