[Terrapreta] Composting with worms-- another sustainability lesson from Cuba

[Michael Bailes]

Just found this interesting Australian site.Worth exploring.

http://leftclickblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/composting-another-sustainability.htmlWednesday,
May 7  Composting with worms-- another sustainability lesson from
Cuba<http://leftclickblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/composting-another-sustainability.html>

The English Green Party's *Derek Wall* dug
up<http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2008/05/compost-cuban-style.html>(so
apt!) this piece by Matthew
Werner on worm farming in Cuba
<http://www.fadr.msu.ru/rodale/agsieve/txt/vol7/art1.html> for compost
week.Worms as *Charles Darwin*
insisted<http://www.webmesh.co.uk/darwinworms3.htm>are important
critters.

"Food for worms..." can be almost anything as the medieval Church and
Shakespeare's Hamlet have pointed out. Food like...very dead human beings.


Not where he eats, but where he is eaten:
a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end.

Worms are also highly efficient carbon sequestors. By taking organic matter
underground, the worms reduce carbon release into the atmosphere as carbon
dioxide and worm farming is akin, in my estimation, to such practices as
Agri Char (aka Terra Preta) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta> in
the role it could play -- rather quickly -- to ameliorate global warming.But
no major Vermicompost project has been initiated with that thesis in mind.

*David Murphy*'s book ,
<http://www.searchsa.com.au/review/book_view.asp?id=94>Organic Growing With
Worms <http://www.searchsa.com.au/review/book_view.asp?id=94>addresses that
possibility in its pages with great verve such that the irrepressible Peter
Cundall <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cundall> writes in regard to it:


"This is an amazing, inspiring book..it should be on the bookshelf of every
farmer, gardener, conservationist, scientist or anyone who comprehends the
environmental dangers now threatening all life forms on earth."

Murphy writes that "...if [the world's agricultural soil] were raised to 5
per cent [organic matter] to a depth of 25 cm, 150 billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide would be sequestered into the soil ".

Healthy soil could sequester up to 350 tonnes of carbon per hectare (Jones
2007), this being equivalent to about 1,285 tonne of carbon dioxide per
hectare removed from atmosphere....This exceeds the estimated 15 billion
tonnes per annum global emissions of carbon dioxide from all sources (Murphy
2005) 10 times over.

Hence soil represents the largest potential sink (storage capacity) for
carbon - *if natural soil quality is restored and maintained* -- Sunnyside
Projects.<http://www.sunnysideprojects.com.au/invoke.cfm?pageid=46D89123-18FE-8969-82CDB5B3F8318973>

*Yep. Worms are really something to get excited about -- not only as a means
to bed down waste (3% of national carbon emissions) but also as a means to
invigorate the extremely poor nature of Australian soils while helping to
reduce the share agriculture plays in our total carbon emissions. --
<http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/drs/indicator/386/index.html>16%
from Agriculture (larger than transport-- 13%-- and second only to
stationary energy ).


*Trends in carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from the agricultural sector,
1990-2004*


Sixty percent of emissions from the agricultural sector come from enteric
fermentation in livestock. These are emissions associated with microbial
fermentation during digestion of feed by ruminant (mostly cattle and sheep)
and some non-ruminant domestic livestock. Emissions associated with
agricultural soils (e.g. disturbance of land by cropping, improved pastures
and the application of fertilisers and animal wastes) and prescribed burning
of savannas also account for a significant proportion of net emissions.

While enteric fermentation is the main driver of emissions from agriculture,
to replace that caloric output with plant foods behooves a major shift in
soil management .

--Dave Riley

-- 
Michael the Archangel
"Politicians will never solve The Problem;
because they don't realise they are The Problem.".
-Robert ( Bob ) Parsons 1995
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