[stephen dewar]

Hi all, can i ask if anyone knows anything about gardeners or farmers that use human faeces (i may have mispelt that) as fertlizer? I am more curious to find out if it is used for large scale agriculture but also keen to know if it is used by any of the members of this forum.

Ta

Stephen

[Deano]

I've never heard of it being used. I do often comment to my wife that it smells 'human' when the farmers spray the fields around us.

No.....surely it can't be used as fert, i'll never eat cornflakes again!!

[scabs]

Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think I could eat something that I or my family had pooped on previously! 

I suspect that human effluent would have to be treated prior to being used as a fertiliser, due to our 'meaty' diet. I may be wrong, of course...

[mumofstig]

It's called sewage sludge when it becomes a fertiliser
At one time you could buy it by the bag for the allotment but think it just went out of favour as people became more squeamish.
I think you'll find that other countries appreciate this resource more than this one does.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1039258/Supermarkets-divided-decision-use-human-sewage-fertiliser-crops.html
This is interesting
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/gardening/urban-gardener-cleve-west-waste-not-want-not-744492.html

[poultrygeist]

Composting toilets must work on the same principle. Give it long enough and it'll be like any other compost.

Better than pumping it out to sea ! 

Rob

[GrannieAnnie]

Years ago when Brian had his landscaping business, he used to get sewage from the treatment plant that he would put underneath new lawns that he laid, but it was burnt or something.  He said it was very black and flaky and dry

But like Poultrygeist said, they use the stuff from composting toilets, although Dick Strawbridge did say that they only empty them every 6 months.  That's why they had 2.  You use one, then leave it for 6 months while you use the other one!

[Oscar Too]

It's been a staple of agriculture for almost as long as we've had agriculture.  It's only gone out of fashion very very recently.  In many ways, Thomas Crapper's invention was a retrograde step.  We started using good quality drinking water to flush our waste into lakes and rivers where it polluted them, instead of composting and recycling it.  I can't imagine that we'll be using the flush toilet for much longer, to be honest.  In my most paranoid survivalist fantasies, I have a picture of the kids around the flickering campfire asking the oldtimer whether it's true that people used 20 litres of good clean water to wash their poop away in the olden days.

[Oscar Too]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1039258/Supermarkets-divided-decision-use-human-sewage-fertiliser-crops.html

An idle google found the above article.  I find it interesting that the writer regards human waste as the alternative to animal-based fertiliser.  Very few conventional farmers use animal waste nowadays - it's messy and difficult to store and transport.  Conventional fertiliser is made from oil, indeed modern agriculture has been described as a way of turning oil into food.  This is why conventional agriculture is so fundamentally unsustainable.

[mumofstig]

HAHAhehe i beat you to that link. NA NA NA NA na

[Trillium]

Very few conventional farmers use animal waste nowadays - it's messy and difficult to store and transport. 

Not sure where your information is coming from Oscar, but over here the farmers have mostly chucked chemical fertilizers to go back to animal manure. As for storing and transporting it.....why? They simply pile it into contained heaps for the summer or winter then spread it when the seasons demand. Just try and get some from a farmer these days because they won't part with what's essentially free to them and is frequently called Black Gold. I suspect that many UK farmers are going back to animal manures as well now that the prices of fertilizers are so exorbitant.

As for human feces, provided that it's well broken down by accepted means (eg compost toilets, etc) there's no reason why it can't be used. Just look at China where it's carted off while almost still fresh.

[Oscar Too]

Very few conventional farmers use animal waste nowadays - it's messy and difficult to store and transport. 

Not sure where your information is coming from Oscar, but over here the farmers have mostly chucked chemical fertilizers to go back to animal manure. As for storing and transporting it.....why? They simply pile it into contained heaps for the summer or winter then spread it when the seasons demand. Just try and get some from a farmer these days because they won't part with what's essentially free to them and is frequently called Black Gold. I suspect that many UK farmers are going back to animal manures as well now that the prices of fertilizers are so exorbitant.

As for human feces, provided that it's well broken down by accepted means (eg compost toilets, etc) there's no reason why it can't be used. Just look at China where it's carted off while almost still fresh.

Well, it's a while since I've been directly involved in farming, but when I was, very few farmers regarded animal waste as anything other than a nuisance.  Animals were typically overwintered in slatted sheds where their waste would fall through the floor to a slurry tank.  Slurry was spread on the fields in spring but more to get rid of it than as part of a fertilising strategy.  It was foul, highly nitrogenous and extremely bad for the plants and the environment, and many a river and lake was killed off by run-off or slurry tanks bursting.  Most farmers didn't have the space, equipment or skills to manage large compost heaps, and it was common to come across huge piles of manure literally dumped by the side of the road.  It would be nice to think that mixed, sustainable farming was making a return.

[stephen dewar]

Well as far as i can see it has indeed been used in the past and at times with little problem but i wonder if there can be any real protest on the squeamish side of things as we are perfectly happy to use cow droppings, chcken manure etc to grow our food. Its not that i am going to try it as i only have a small veg garden which is my only garden in front of my house so that's a definite no no, unless i want to become even more unpopular with the niehgbours.

Stephen

[Trillium]

Oscar, it did indeed become a problem years ago when fertilizers were so cheap and easy to use. But now, things have changed. In Canada, farms are inspected for potential manure runoff and farmers are forced to either build proper slurry containment tanks, or to properly store manure solids for spring and fall spreading. They're very aware of the damages their animal waste can do to water systems. But I notice now that more and more slurry farmers are getting out of that practice as some people have literally fallen into the open holding tanks and died of various toxin ingestions. Not to mention the horrific stink which so many people complain about when it's spread. Most farmers are going back to the tried and true ways of manure spreaders. I suspect that the UK is quickly following these same guidelines and using what they already have which is much safer other than the amino-whatsis problem you have over there.

[Oscar Too]

Oh, there were regular horror stories in Ireland of people falling into slurry tanks.

Apparently, oil-based fertiliser prices have risen 90% in the last year, so you're right, we can expect to see animal manure being used more frequently, and human waste too.  I imagine that all the supermarkets' PR departments are quietly dreading the first Shock! Horror! Human Poo in your Lettuce! story.

[mumofstig]

Can anyone remember the stories when we had 'human waste' contaminated lettuces a couple of years back? Think it came from spain, but memory not good? seem to remember that they were using waste water  because they had a drought....it's all a bit hazy............please someone else remember....
Found link
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-354814/For-sale-Spanish-lettuce-thats-watered-raw-sewage.html