Page 18 - Winter2010

Now it’s important to understand that with then. Not only that, but I would suggest that it
any innovation, it takes a while for the infra- just goes with the masculine psyche to think that
structure, policy and knowledge that follows composting isn’t as cool as bombs. Bombs are
the innovation to metabolize so that it reaches way more sexy than compost.
the entire culture. For example, with the e- Imagine you are a farmer in the 1950s,
commerce boom, all the state governments are when we are ramping up industrial production
going into apoplectic seizures trying to figure again after the war. We needed to industrialize
out how to collect retail sales taxes when people the farm because most of the workers had left
don’t go to box stores and instead buy online and the farm for jobs in the cities. And the starting
shelter their purchases from sales tax vendors. gun goes off to solve the soil fertility issue. As
The innovation is in place, but it takes time for a farmer, you can either buy a small amount of
the metabolic cultural policy to catch up. Well, material in a bag very cheaply because it already
the same thing happened with these two very has a production and distribution infrastructure,
different proposals for solving the soil fertility or you can find all your neighbors to go out with
problem. a pitchfork and try to machete up some biomass
One was chemical or mechanical, and one and tote manure around and spread it without a
was biological. The biological effort was led by PTO-powered manure spreader—or a tractor or
a British botanist named Sir Albert Howard. He chipper or conveyer belt or any of those kinds
had dedicated his life to studying the problem of things that farmers have today. If you were a
of soil fertility and in 1943 he announced his farmer in 1950, what would you do?
solution to the problem: aerobic composting. The point is, there was no Manhattan Project
Unfortunately, in 1943 the world was pre- for compost. Had we had a Manhattan Project for
occupied with a little disturbance called World compost, not only would we have fed the world,
War II, and that disturbance funneled billions of but we would have done it without making any
Had we had dollars and the best and brightest of the world into three-legged salamanders, infertile frogs and a
a Manhattan the mechanistic path. It turns out that nitrogen, dead zone the size of Rhode Island in the Gulf
Project for potassium and phosphorus—N-P-K—is what of Mexico.
compost, not we need to make bombs. And so the Pentagon Today we have all sorts of high-tech infra-
essentially financed the metabolic infrastructure structure to leverage the scientific composting
only would knowledge to handle what Justus von Liebig and pasture management that André Voisin, Sir
we have fed proposed in 1837. Thus, the war effort financed Albert Howard, J. I. Rodale and other pioneers
the world, to an unfair advantage the chemical approach to in the biological food movement brought to the
table. We have solar-powered electric fences,
agriculture.
but we would We need to understand that in 1943, when electro-netting, front-end loaders, chippers,
have done Sir Albert Howard brought composting to the four-wheel drive tractors, PTO-manure spread-
it without world, we did not even have rural electrification ers, hoop structures, canvas coverings, band-saw
in Augusta County, my county. Augusta County mills and electro-magnetized sprays. We have all
making any did not get rural electrification until 1957 and sorts of stuff to make composting and manure-
three-legged Georgia did not get rural electrification until spreading feasible, but it took over fifty years for

salamanders, 1965. Not only did most farms lack electricity in our side without any government help to create
1942, they did not have chippers. They did not the infrastructure to metabolize, leverage and
infertile frogs even have tractors, they were still using mules capitalize on Sir Albert Howard’s 1943 gift to the
and a dead in our county in the mid 1950s. There were no world. And now that we have come to this point,
zone the size PTO-powered manure spreaders. Goodness, we’re spinning circles around the other side.
Other points about feeding the world: re-
some farms were just starting to use metal
of Rhode instead of wooden pitchforks. The point is that member, folks, the United States has thirty-five
Island in the when you’re composting, when you’re running million acres of lawn. Let that sink in a little bit,
Gulf of fertility off real time solar biomass for decom- thirty-five million acres of lawn. And we have
position, it involves a lot of materials handling, thirty-six million acres for housing and feeding
Mexico. and materials handling was very difficult back recreational horses, that’s seventy-one million

18 Wise Traditions WINTER 2010

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