WA Organic Farmer Loses Appeal over GM Contamination From Neighbour

A decision yesterday on the appeal by WA organic grain grower against his neighbour, claiming his adjacent GM crop of GM canola destroyed his organic certification.

Quite a lot of media attention including this one -

http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/news/agriculture/cropping/general-news/gm-case-prompts-calls-for-coexistence/2742324.aspx?storypage=0

and some from both organic and GM advocates.

• http://decisions.justice.wa.gov.au/supreme/supdcsn.nsf/judgment.xsp?documentId=EF16808AA8598CEA48257EB5001647FB&action=openDocument
• www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/cropping/general-news/marsh-loses-gm-appeal/2742273.aspx?storypage=0
• www.croplife.org.au/media_release/common-sense-and-traditional-principles-of-coexistence-in-farming-upheld/

The appeal in a 2 to 1 judgment supported the original decision, which the organic grower, Steve Marsh lost, in essence supporting the use of GM crops near organic crops. The judgments need careful reading in extending the outcomes to more general situations, but does essentially support the co-existence of both options in the farming community, but not necessarily without some planning to ensure the co-existence of both systems.

So far it has been a lawyers picnic - with costs on both sides now apparently exceeding [ by some margin] over $1 million Australian dollars.

My view was that it would go to the High Court, and it is seemingly looking as if it might, even though all judgments so far have gone against the organic farmer, and by some implication, the Australian  organic certifying agency, which uses an absolute zero tolerance for GM  contamination, which is different to many other countries where reality allows a very, very, tiny contamination level. essentially a non meaningful amount of GM contamination, which could be random.

A High Court challenge would be very expensive, and the organic farmer is already potentially liable for over A$0.8 million in legal expenses for the defendant- which could mean loss of the farm.

A complex story that is not yet over.

Organic Food - A Social Crutch for the Wealthy?

Organic food and organic agriculture will never feed the world, yet adherents in western countries continue to expand.  Or are they?

Recent studies show a connection between organic agriculture and food devotees and altruistic behaviour which may indicate some social and psychological conditions.

Many of the claims made about organic food just do not stack up, especially in relation to freedom from pesticides in comparison to conventionally produced foods.

While the tenor of this recent article is provocative, and probably meant to be that way, it does debunk many claims related to organic production systems, and alludes to the social issues around users of the materials.

Read it yourself, and do not be too indulgent with your food.  A good diet is essential!!

http://qcl.farmonline.com.au/blogs/agribuzz-with-david-leyonhjelm/organic-food-its-a-religion/2611131.aspx?storypage=0

Organic Eggs - NOT ALL Are Really Organic

According to the Cornucopia Institute (CI), a non-profit which promotes economic justice for family scale farming, all organic eggs produced in the USA are not alike.

They recently released the report - Scrambled Eggs: Separating Factory Farm Egg Production from Authentic Organic Agriculture.

The report contains an Organic Egg Scorecard that rates 70 name brand as well as additional private label organic egg producers based on 22 factors that the organization deems critical to the typical organic consumer. The main rating criteria include outdoor access, outdoor management, indoor quality of life and welfare, and organic principles of farm interdependence and ecological sustainability.

The highest rating, five eggs, goes to companies CI considers ethical family farms, companies that go beyond national organic standards. Most of these companies are small, local distributers.

The producers given the lowest rating, one egg, are those CI believes are in violation of organic standards of animal welfare and/or were not transparent with their practices during CI's research. Sadly, many of the single-egg brands are the ones most easily available to consumers. Whole Foods' 365 brand, Trader Joe's brand, O Organic by Safeway, and Costco’s Kirkland brand all received a single egg for their sup-par performance.

The report, conducted over a one year period, details how organic egg producers vary greatly in their interpretation of the Federal USDA Organic Standards, "Paths are diverging in the organic-egg-producing community: One path affords more outdoor access and more diversity on the farm; and another path has led to large-scale industrialization motivated by profit."

While Australia has quite strict rules about what is organic and its labelling, it is quite possible that similar issues occur here.

Normally a producer is "Certified Organic" which includes strict inspections and using verifiable organic inputs, and the "Certified Organic" term is used. Claims about "organic" products are often just "claims", unless they are certified as organic.

So be careful........organic eggs ain't always organic eggs!

Camel Burger -To Go, Please

A lot of camels have been exported from central Australia, averaging around 3000 a year, yet camel populations continue to grow........exponentially........well almost so it seems.

There are a lot, and they mostly are considered as a feral animal issue. Their numbers are currently around one million. And continuing to rise, such that environmental degradation is a very serious issue as well as damage to towns and rural properties. A $19 million project to cull camels has been proposed.[ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/26/world/main5786556.shtml]

Quite a few have tried before to establish an overseas or even local market for the meat. It just has not been successful, and the slaughter process is often the problem. Camels require a specialised abbattoir, sized for them.

This time round, maybe there is more chance of success.

The proposal is to establish an abbatoir at Port Pirie, trucking the camels in for halal slaughter, then export chilled or frozen boxed meat. The proponent has established credentials in the middle east market for other meat products - sheep, goat and cattle so outlets are in place, plus there has been the development of some fast food camel burger outlets in Dubai, with another planned possibly for Abu Dhabi.

It might just be different enough to work.

read more here - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704628404576265783864754552.html

It would assist with reductions in camel numbers in Australia, provide jobs and income for remote areas and feed the Middle East. It might even be considered as organic camel meat. Maybe it has a chance.

UPDATE on 19 May

Read more here - http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/42712

when Australian stories make it to this level, it is considered big news.

Dioxin Contamination in Food Scare - Germany

China is often accused of lax process and poor management of industrial food processes. The contaminated milk powder scandal is but part of that.

This time it is Germany......and dioxin.

Same sort of issue, a company in this case it seems, opting for cheap ingredients for formulated animal feeds, with the material not suitable for animal use, but only for industrial use. The animal feeds were then used and the dioxin showed up in eggs, pork, etc.

The contamination is nominally small, really miniscule. But modern analytical techniques can detect very very small levels of some of these toxic products, and dioxin is certainly toxic. German authorities are playing it down, stating that levels are extremely low, and NOT a human health threat.......which is most probably true. But perception is EVERYTHING, and the public is very unhappy over the whole issue.

Food safety is a big issue, and Germany is a big organic market, so there are many consumers if not buying organic foods exclusively, do so at times. This will further inflame emotions over the "factory food" catchcry.

In reality............a shoddy, tawdry manufacturer, who it seems is under big pressure and may become insolvent over the issue.

There are many news items with this one a reasonable overview:

http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=564818&vId=

This will reopen questions about regulation or reregulation of food quality. Yet, in reality the problem WAS detected, and quickly dealt with. There will be recriminations, absolutely no doubt.

Restoration of the Loess Plateau in China

Things tend to be done on a large scale in China..............new cities, new roads and now landscape restoration.

The loess plateau in China has traditionally been a key part of productive agriculture, but it has suffered some terrible erosion in achieving some of the production and many many areas are now totally lost to agriculture. There are many images on the net of this damage, and I have previously blogged about it. But all may not be lost.

The article below is reproduced in its entirety...........and worth reading.

The concept was, to my best knowledge, originally espoused by CSIRO scientists in the early 1980s.......as landscape ecology. Especially relevant to arid zones, and at that time after a long drought, but also for any disturbed landscape in which the key is to get basic biology re-established in the soil. Often low forms of plants establish first, lichens, worts etc along with microbes......and things go from there as organic matter starts to accumulate.

Needless to say, add organic matter and you get a big boost, and this naturally happens in minor soil depressions where organic residuals accumlate, but a liberal dose of added mulch is just fine!!!

We used similar technology to deal with erosion and soil restoration on a major mine development in Indonesia in the late 1990s, by adding significant organic matter to help kickstart plant re-establishment in a monsoonal environment where erosion control was also a key factor in its success.
As the article says:
"It starts as a physical intervention, but it becomes a biophysical intervention once the biology stops gravity being such a destructive force,” Mr Liu said.
“The principle is to start the accumulation of organic matter and total vegetation coverage, and at a higher level understanding the role of biodiversity.”
“It’s an advance over the concept of simply tree planting, which is simplistic and doesn’t talk about other factors like soil condition or other forms of vegetation.”

This is the key issue............absolutely!


--------------------


Restoring China's lost Loess Plateau
MATT CAWOOD 11 Jun, 2010 10:18 AM

ABANDONED 1000 years ago by one of the first civilisations because of land degradation, China’s Loess Plateau has become the focus of a modern land restoration effort that has transformed agriculture and the local environment.

Key to restoration of 35,000 square kilometres of the 640,000 sq km plateau was the surrendering of farmland to purely ecological plantings.

According to a film made by soil scientist John Liu, in Australia last week to talk to the National Business Leaders Forum, local farmers strongly resisted the idea of giving over farmland to trees, but were persuaded by compensation payments on land taken permanently out of production.

As reported in Mr Liu’s film, Hope in a Changing Climate, available on the internet here , engineering landscapes and re-planting vegetation across key ecological recharge areas has changed the environment in ways that have lifted farm incomes threefold.

The Loess Plateau, which takes its name from the mineral-rich wind-borne sediments that make up much of its soil, was for several thousand years the base of China’s Han people.
It is thought the plateau was the second place on Earth to have a settled agriculture based on cultivation of the soil, after Mesopotamia.

Mr Liu said that China’s extensive written records show that over thousands of years, the plateau progressively lost its ability to sustain the Han. Their primitive agriculture degraded the landscape and destroyed the ecology, until about 1000 years ago the Han power base shifted east to what is now Bejing.

The plateau has since earned the distinction of being the most eroded place on Earth. Eroded loess provides the “yellow” in China’s Yellow River.

In 1995, when Mr Liu was invited to record the initial stage of the landscape restoration project, the plateau was being farmed at a subsistence level by desperately poor farmers who unwittingly compounded their own ecological troubles.

According to Mr Liu, Chinese scientists calculated the cost of sediment loss against the cost of restoring the landscape, and decided that restoration would be a quarter of the cost of allowing degradation to continue.

Less wealthy in 1995 than now, the Chinese borrowed US$500 million from the World Bank and set about rebuilding the landscape - mostly by hand. In typically picturesque Chinese terms, the project aimed to give the eroded hills “a hat, a belt and shoes at their feet”. That translates to tree cover on the upper slopes, farming terraces on the lower slopes, and dams in the valleys.

Massive landscape engineering was involved in the transformation - an approach unlikely to get much traction in Australia - “but the results are stunning”, Mr Liu said.

At one level, the project is an endorsement of the “front of pipe” approach to water management floated earlier this year by Australian landscape campaigner Major-General Michael Jeffery of Outcomes Australia.

On the Loess Plateau, more porous vegetation-covered soils and the flat terraces now catch and rainfall that once ran off the plateau during the rainy season, leaving it in drought during the dry season.

Water captured by the soil instead filters down through the terraces, fuelling crops. Waterways run clear, and farm productivity has soared.

Better productivity on the slopes, and the dams below, have allowed greenhouse agriculture to flourish in the valleys, extending the income-making opportunities for the local communities.
“It starts as a physical intervention, but it becomes a biophysical intervention once the biology stops gravity being such a destructive force,” Mr Liu said. “The principle is to start the accumulation of organic matter and total vegetation coverage, and at a higher level understanding the role of biodiversity.” “It’s an advance over the concept of simply tree planting, which is simplistic and doesn’t talk about other factors like soil condition or other forms of vegetation.”

Since 1995, Mr Liu has travelled to 60 countries looking at landscape regeneration techniques. He is a founder of the Environmental Education Media Project, which numbers the World Bank, Rockerfeller Foundation and Syngenta among its sponsors.

Although only briefly in Australia, Mr Liu was introduced to the environmental benefits of time-controlled livestock grazing practices in use here.

Also see here with more photos -

http://qcl.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/restoring-chinas-lost-loess-plateau/1854215.aspx?storypage=0

[article reproduced from the Land online]

Livestock and Soil Compaction Quantified for Tropical Regions

Most agronomists would have been aware of earlier NZ studies on the influence of livestock on soil compaction and subsequent reductions in pasture or crop yields. New Zealand conditions are wet, and soils are quite different to northern Australia.

Yet, there is this perception that livestock cause severe soil compaction. More recent Australian studies would appear to refute these earlier claims, at least for our own conditions.

The following material was in the GRDC Magazine Ground Cover, no 86 in May 2010, and reproduced with permission.
----------------------
Livestock compaction quantified

The compaction effects livestock have on soil may not be as problematic as previously thought, a Queensland-based research project is finding Livestock compaction may be less of a problem than many producers think, research by CSIRO’s Dr Lindsay Bell, who leads a GRDC-supported Southern Queensland Farming Systems (SQFS) project*, has found.

By examining numerous existing studies Dr Bell found:
• stock apply similar pressures on the soil to unloaded vehicles;
• treading by livestock can reduce soil porosity and infiltration rate, and increase soil bulk density and soil strength, although these consequences are mainly in the soil surface (the top five to 10 centimetres);
• despite these effects, reductions in crop performance have rarely been measured, possibly because effects are too small in magnitude or depth to influence plant growth significantly;
• crop simulations with reduced root growth and surface conductivity suggest that even in the most severe case a 10 to 15 per cent reduction in yield on average could occur;
• the risk of compaction can be reduced by removing stock during wet conditions and maintaining soil organic matter; and
• because compaction from livestock is shallow it is not long-lasting and is rectified by natural processes or tillage.

For example, one study Dr Bell looked at was Bruce Radford’s (Department of Environment and Resource Management, Biloela) two-year study on grey vertosol soils in Central Queensland.

It found that when cattle grazed sorghum stubble when the soil surface was dry there was no impact on subsequent crop growth or grain yield. But grain yield was reduced by 15 per cent when cattle grazed stubble when the soil was wet.

Similarly, a Western Australian study found there was no effect on grain yield from grazing a pasture the previous year. However, reduced wheat plant density did occur when sown no-till into areas that were continuously grazed the previous year.

As well as examining numerous studies, Dr Bell also undertook a modelling study using APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) to investigate how sensitive simulated wheat yield is to livestock’s surface compaction effects. The study was modelled over a 50-year period (1956 to 2006) and explored the two main effects – reduced root growth and reduced surface water conductivity – independently and when combined. The model did not account for the possible effects of diseases or waterlogging.

Averaged over half a century, the results showed that mild surface soil compaction from livestock would result in reductions in grain yield of less than 10 per cent. These mild compaction effects are similar to most documented changes in soil conditions after treading by livestock, implying that in most cases the effects of compaction by livestock on crop performance are small. This is supported by the few studies that have investigated this experimentally, Dr Bell says.

Crop losses could be higher if more severe soil compaction occurred, especially if surface infiltration was greatly reduced and ground cover levels were low. Yield losses in the severe scenarios averaged 10 to 15 per cent, but might be as high as 30 per cent compared to the control paddock. However, these severe reductions in root growth and surface infiltration that were modelled are far more severe than most observed effects in the field.

The modelling also found that reductions in crop growth and yield were more affected by lower surface conductivity and rainfall infiltration rate rather than by reduced root growth in the surface layers. Hence, maintaining surface conditions such as stubble cover, which improves infiltration, decreased these effects.

Although this study used computer models to explore livestock compaction effects, there is a need for more experimental data to investigate how crops respond to changes in soil surface condition from livestock grazing.

* Dr Lindsay Bell leads the SQFS project ‘Short-term pastures in grain systems’.

Common sense says avoid too many stock on areas that are very wet and boggy.........but that effects are generally modest, and may not last too long. Interestingly, adequate soil organic matter mitigated compaction problems.

It is Time to Recycle the Organics

Organic recycling will be vital to recover the vast amounts of nutrients that come to the city in food.

I posted some material from Singapore in 2009, a place where organic recycling is a joke, and where incineration is the norm. YET.........some commentators wax lyrical about using organic food, and how wonderful it is, in a city that imports over 95% of its food, and then burns the residuals. One needs to be a little bit real about the issue.

So many nutrients, so much carbon is in the food we eat, and in the city, most is wasted.........wasted.

In Australia, particularly in southern cities this issue is slowly being addressed. It fits with the emerging potential technologies of vertical wall and roof top gardens as well, potential city sites for food and green production, currently being developed and enthused over by for example, Prof Julian Cribb of Sydney.

the following article has been lifted from "Inside Waste" and was written by Gerry Gillespie, an ardent advocate for carbon and nutrient recycling and recovery.

Unfortunately, I think it will be a considerable time before it happens in the Northern Territory in any modest fashion, even. But it should, as local soils scream out for better soil carbon levels to both hold water and nutrients, as well as needing a great boost in soil nutrients to aid production in both agriculture and horticulture.

It is a important story...........

The organic base
Tuesday, 19 January 2010

As Australia’s waste industry gears up for 2010, the president of Revolve - Canberra, Gerry Gillespie, urges people to focus on the root issues of organic waste management. He argues valuable organic materials must be returned to soils, and experience shows this can be done very effectively when communities are empowered to become part of local solutions.

Every individual, regardless of their social standing, produces organic waste as long as they continue to eat.The true value of this product, both in terms of its nutrient value and its value as a catalyst for the soil to generate more food, has never truly been capitalised on in western society.

It is only in Asian communities that the true value of returning organic materials to soils has been appreciated and developed.

Yet even in western societies, where the public (with the exception of gardeners) has long been seen as ignorant of the value of this material, a substantial shift has begun to take place with the advent of new programs focussed on food.For the first time in its modern history, western society has begun to truly look at its waste organic outputs.

In the first instances this was mainly from the western perspective of wasted food as a waste of money, but now also and more importantly, for its value to the food chain.This in turn has lead to a consideration of the value of clean, quality organic products as a catalyst in the production of quality food from quality soil.The Groundswell project in NSW has clearly demonstrated that, given the right tools and information to act, the public will respond with enthusiasm to the collection of food waste for reuse in agriculture.

This project, using the City to Soil collection system, has demonstrated that at our very animal base we fully grasp the importance of soil as our mother, in the sense that it feeds and clothes us.As individuals, parents and grandparents, we see that the security of future generations is firmly based in the soil. The response to this project has seen the collections of organic waste with extremely low contamination rates of less than 0.5%.

This project has clearly demonstrated the public wants to be involved. Indeed it has demonstrated the collection of organic waste, once it is embraced by the community, will not only empower them to become part of the solution but will also provide the basis for a link into a much bigger picture of behavioural change.

Compost and carbon

In developing the City to Soil process, the project managers needed to reduce the cost of compost manufacture and so designed a new system where the organic waste requires no shredding and very little turning. This process importantly also produces no odour.

Material is sprayed with water and a two part biological inoculant, covered with tarpaulins and left for six weeks without turning. The material can achieve temperatures in excess of 70 degrees in the first week. It then settles back to around 55 degrees for the remainder of the process.

The material produced in this compost process, returned to the soil, provides the basis for supported land management change which dramatically reduces fertiliser use, improves moisture retention water in soils, increases yield and increases soil carbon.

If the legacy emissions currently in the atmosphere are to be addressed, improving our soils worldwide is the only way of doing it. While climate change may be the largest threat we have brought upon humanity, the generation of carbon in agricultural soils and the opportunities for change that it brings could be one of the greatest benefits humanity has ever given to the world. We have at our fingertips the means to end poverty, we have at our fingertips the means to feed the world, we have at our fingertips the means for a new world economy.This new direction, this new hope, is based on the simplest and most disregarded of the products of humanity – our organic waste.

Source-separated organic waste provides the tools to link the community back to its food supply, it provides the tools for us to rebuild our relationship with out soils, it provides the means to support local regional economies. The only thing we need to do to be part of this great revolution is to maintain ownership of our own organic waste.

Conclusion

The greed of the global economy has forgotten that you can’t have a labourer in China make cheap clothes for the world market without food. And you can’t feed that labourer without soil.

The global economy has forgotten that it is nothing without soil. Every cheap shirt, every cheap car, every cheap tool, represents some part of a nation’s soil. We are nothing without soil. We don’t exist without soil.

Peak phosphorus spells the death of chemical agriculture. There is a new way. There is a better way – for humanity and for the planet.

Owning your organic wastes in your home and in your community provides you with the power to help local farmers produce food and to generate local wealth in the emerging carbon market.

No economy, rich or poor, exists without food – because no economy rich or poor exists without soil. The soil is your mother – you are nothing without your mother.

The issues of ‘peak oil’, of ‘peak phosphorus’ and other matters of assumed criticality are all indicators of our humble human need to replace one problem with another by addressing only the symptoms of our disease. In the same way that ‘peak oil’ tells us that we have been too reliant on an unsustainable supply of oil, ‘peak phosphorus’ tells us that we have relied for too long on industrial chemical farming.

Good quality soil and soil carbon can provide humanity with the direct link back to its very basic roots. It can be part of our individual responsibility to ensure that the farmers are given the right tools and the capacity to utilise their soil based on the experiential management skills of themselves and past generations. In linking personal behaviour with soil carbon we will be weaving the tapestry of soil quality into the reality of our daily existence. To achieve this we need to have a community understanding and response to the ability to grow our soils. The only place this can be achieved is on the farm.

It is that same place that grows our food and is the home and heart of our repeatable economic base.

In the world voluntary carbon market we have been presented with the first opportunity in human history to include our environment in our economy. We as humans have finally reached that same point that every monkey, bird and bee awoke to as it was born new into its circumstance, its natural economy. Every species lives within its economy because to do otherwise is to perish.

We can now join the evolution of economy by including the obvious in our accounts. Everything we now do and make can be predicated on its carbon value. You as an individual in this place are at this exciting starting point.

We must begin.

[partially sourced from Inside Waste]

Nutritional value of Organic food Claimed to Be Superior

The Biological Farmers Association of Australia has isused a press release covering a French report on the nutritional value of organic foods.

While of interest, it does not address whether the claims actually mean anything in day to day use of the organic or conventional grown products. As one wag said - who you believe, the poms or the frogs, alluding to the British report that claimed there were no differences in quality.

One thing for sure though, only the wealthy countries can really afford the prices charged for at times, inferior quality organic products. For about 90% of the world, food quantity is still the dominant issue. Singapore has had a similiar debate recently over organic food, and this in a country that imports about 95% of its food.
---------------------------------

Research verifies nutritional value of organic foods: BFA
15/09/2009 3:35:00 PM

A NEW report by the French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) has found that organic foods are more nutritious and contain less pesticides and nitrates, which have been linked to a range of health problems including diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Shane Heaton, nutritionist for the Biological Farmers of Australia (BFA), says the research is a thorough and critical evaluation of the nutritional quality of organic food, and has found organic foods have higher levels of minerals and antioxidants as well as a raft of other benefits. “This is what an unbiased review of the available evidence reveals,” he says. “This review is contrary to another recently released review commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency and widely reported in the media as showing organic food has no significant benefits over non-organic food.” "This review does the question justice by comparing not just a handful of nutrients but also dry matter content, antioxidant content, pesticide levels, and nitrate content." "Organic wins out over ordinary food in every respect.”

In 2001, AFSSA set up an expert working group to perform an exhaustive and critical evaluation of the nutritional and sanitary quality of organic food. The AFSSA says they aimed for the highest quality scientific standards during the evaluation. The selected papers referred to well-defined and certified organic agricultural practices, had the necessary information on design and follow-up, valid measured parameters and the appropriate sampling and statistical analyses.

After more than two years of work involving about 50 experts from different fields of organic agriculture research, a final consensus report was issued in the French language in 2003. The current study published in English in the peer reviewed scientific journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development is a summary of this report and the relevant studies that have been published since 2003.

The conclusions of this study challenge the findings of the recent UK Food Standards Agency study that was widely criticised by international experts for using flawed methodology and a conclusion that contradicted its own data.

The major points of The French Agency for Food Safety study are:
1. Organic plant products contain more dry matter (more nutrient dense).
2. Organic plant products have higher levels of minerals.
3. Organic plant products contain more anti-oxidants such as phenols and salicylic acid (known to protect against cancers, heart disease and many other health problems).
4. Carbohydrate, protein and vitamin levels are insufficiently documented.
5. 94–100pc of organic foods do not contain any pesticide residues.
6. Organic vegetables contain far less nitrates, about 50pc less (high nitrate levels are linked to a range of health problems including diabetes and Alzheimer’s).
7. Organic cereals contain similar levels of mycotoxins as conventional ones..
8. Organically-bred cattle have more lean meat and more polyunsaturated fatty acids than their conventional counterparts.
9. Organic chicken fillets contain 2–3 times less fat and are significantly higher in n–3 fatty acid content (with reported anti-cancer effects and other health benefits).


Source: http://swroc.cfans.umn.edu/organic/ASD_Lairon_2009.pdf

Soil Carbon Storage

Many are of the view that just by using no-till or some form of conservation tillage you can store enormous amount of carbon in your soil. Not so.......or at least it might not be as clear cut as it seems.

The article below summarises recent research from Canada. The gist of it is that it might have to be very much local research to really get answers.

This has big implications for the Northern Territory. We will need to get this work done locally, not rely on answers from elsewhere. Our combination of a range of factors even probably make it more critcal to understand the local situation, especially as there are not too many similar environments around the world to even compare.

So far the NT has done little to understand the issue.
------------------------------

Soil carbon storage is not always influenced by tillage practices
Source: Soil Science Society of America Published Feb. 27, 2009

The practice of no-till has increased considerably during the past 20 yr. Soils under no-till usually host a more abundant and diverse biota and are less prone to erosion, water loss, and structural breakdown than tilled soils. Their organic matter content is also often increased and consequently, no-till is proposed as a measure to mitigate the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. However, recent studies show that the effect of no-till on carbon sequestration can be variable depending on soil and climatic conditions, and nutrient management practices.

Researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Québec City) investigated the impacts of tillage (no-till vs. moldboard plowing) and N and P fertilization on carbon storage in a clay loam soil under cool and humid conditions in eastern Canada. Corn and soybean had been grown in a yearly rotation for 14 yr. The results of the study were reported in the 2009 January-February issue of the Soil Science Society of America Journal.

The authors concluded that their investigation indicates “…no-till enhanced soil organic carbon (SOC) content in the soil surface layer, but moldboard plowing resulted in greater SOC content near the bottom of the plow layer. When the entire soil profile (0-60 cm) was considered, both effects compensated each other which resulted in statistically equivalent SOC stocks for both tillage practices”.

The effects of tillage and N fertilization varied depending on the soil depth considered. When considering only the top 20 cm of soil, the lowest C stocks were measured in the plowed soil with the highest N fertilizer level, whereas the highest SOC stocks were observed in the NT treatment with the highest N rate. The authors hypothesized that while N fertilization favored a greater residue accumulation in the top 20 cm of no-till soils, mixing of crop residue with soil particles and N fertilizer by tillage stimulated the mineralization of residue and native soil carbon.

However, when accounting for the whole soil profile, these variations in the surface 20 cm of soil were counterbalanced by significant SOC accumulation in the 20- to 30-cm soil layer of tilled soils, resulting in statistically equivalent SOC stocks for all tillage and N treatments. This study further emphasizes the importance of taking into account the whole soil profile when determining management effects on SOC storage, especially when full-inversion tillage is involved. The authors conclude that “only considering the top 20 cm of soil would have led us to an erroneous evaluation of the interactive effects of tillage and N fertilization on SOC stock”.

Field studies of the impact of tillage and fertilization on carbon storage have yielded contrasting results in various parts of the world. An explanation of the high intersite variability of the influence of no-till on soil carbon storage will require that we understand the impacts of no-till and fertilizer management on SOC sequestration for various soil and climatic conditions.

Further, researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are pursuing their investigations to understand the factors that control the accumulation of soil carbon at depth under moldboard plowing. Specifically, they now focus their efforts on the role of clay particles and soil aggregation in stabilizing carbon.

-----------------------------------------------

So, back to the drawing board!

Food Waste - Western Society Should be Ashamed

How much food does your household waste that is prepared and not consumed? How much do you buy and then throw out without using each week? How much is prepared and wasted in restaurants and food halls?

These are serious issues relating to world food availability.

To add to this issue much of this dumped food around the world is then deposited in landfills, to produce methane gas and add to global warming. Relatively modest volumes go into composting or anaerobic digestion and similar options that can allow recycling of the organic residuals and save the mineral components for reuse, in further horticulture and agriculture.

I do not subscribe to the view that organic agriculture will feed the world.........but the addition of carbon to soil via waste recycled organics is a real benefit to all agriculture.

Read the article and media release.

Stop wasting food and ask your local government services to improve their performance.

In Australia a big change is occurring now, and will accelerate under a new carbon emissions scheme. Curiously, waste is included, agriculture and horticulture are not. And we will pay significantly for waste in the carbon emissions scheme.

There are many options available to do better, but often the major supermarkets are not trying too hard. Some are investigating the use of small in-vessel composting systems [ http://www.esplimited.co.nz/], some others are using a Biobin [ see http://www.biobin.net/]. We see the latter as a very useful simple to deply option for many food handling sites, and strongly advocate the former for larger sites such as hotels and resorts. In Australia the coming CPRS will help drive this rethink of practices as waste is included from the beginning.

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UN calls for food waste revolution
Report calls for global crackdown on food waste and expansion of organic farming to help tackle impending shortages

The world could easily feed its growing population if farmers, businesses and government's simply stepped up efforts to curtail food waste, according to a major new study from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The report, which was published at last week's meeting of the UNEP Governing Council in Nairobi, Kenya, warned that without "a green revolution" across the food industry the combination of population growth and climate change will lead to severe food shortages over the coming decades that could see food prices climb by between 30 and 50 per cent.

"We need a Green revolution in a Green Economy but one with a capital G", said UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. "We need to deal with not only the way the world produces food but the way it is distributed, sold and consumed, and we need a revolution that can boost yields by working with rather than against nature."

The report, entitled The Environmental Food crises: Environment's role in averting future food crises, calls on food producers, businesses and governments to prioritise efforts to cut food waste as the most effective means of addressing future shortages.

It found that up to 50 per cent of food produced in the US is wasted, while a third of food purchased in the UK is never eaten. Meanwhile, food losses in developing world are similarly high with an estimated 20 to 40 per cent of potential harvests lost as a result of pests and pathogens.

Moreover, 30m tonnes of fish are reportedly discarded at sea each year – enough to sustain a 50 per cent increase in fish farming and aquaculture production, which the UNEP calculates is needed to maintain per capita fish consumption at current levels by 2050 without increasing pressure on an already stressed marine environment.

"Over half of the food produced today is either lost, wasted or discarded as a result of inefficiency in the human-managed food chain," said Steiner. "There is evidence within the report that the world could feed the entire projected population growth alone by becoming more efficient while also ensuring the survival of wild animals, birds and fish on this planet." The report calls for increased investment in agricultural R&D to help reduce waste during the production process, as well as increased efforts from government's to cut consumer food waste.

In addition, to targeting food waste the report calls for an end to agricultural subsidies, curtailing of the practice of using cereals to feed livestock, increased investment in developing second generation biofuels that do not impact on food supplies and improved water management regimes in drought affected areas.

It also calls for wider adoption of organic farming methods, citing a recent report by UNEP and the UN Conference on Trade and Development which studied 114 small-scale farms in 24 African countries and found that yields more than doubled where organic or near organic techniques were used.
"Simply ratcheting up the fertilizer and pesticide-led production methods of the 20th Century is unlikely to address the challenge", says Achim Steiner. "It will increasingly undermine the critical natural inputs and nature-based services for agriculture such as healthy and productive soils, the water and nutrient recycling of forests, and pollinators such as bees and bats."

The report warned that unless its recommendations are adopted up to 25 per cent of the world's food production could be lost by 2050 as a result of " environmental breakdown". For example, it said that the retreat of Himalayan glaciers as a result of climate change could put nearly half of Asia's cereal production at risk, while global water shortages could cut crop yields by 20 per cent.

In related news, UNEP released a second report which found that 40 per cent of civil wars fought since 1990 were a direct result of natural resource shortages, a situation that is likely to worsen as climate change accelerates. It warned that conflicts with a link to natural resources were twice as likely to relapse within five years as conflicts fought for other reasons, and called on the UN to take environmental and resource issues more seriously in its post-conflict planning.

This is very serious stuff ............but is anyone really listening?

The current economic woes around the world really mean all should be reducing wasted food, as a simple economic measure.

But are we?

[partially sourced from Business Green by James Murray 23 Feb 2009]

Africa Saved by Organic Food - Really??

In the 1970s and 80s, two well renowned CGIAR Centres - IITA and ICRISAT had major programs originally in India and then in Africa to examine crop production. A focus of much of the work was plant establishment and performance in the heavy but erratic rains of the monsoonal and similar tropical areas. Crucial issues to improved performance and crop yield were the use of soil mulches [often legumes] to reduce erosion and lower soil temperatures to mangeable ranges in which seeds could germinate and establish. Mulch also enabled soil moisture to be retained and thus allowed better establishment. Without satisfactory establishment and early growth, crops would fail to perform.

This system was very successful, and similar modified large scale systems have been developed for the tropics in Australia and Brazil, for example. Part of the Australian system involved a ley farming phase in which tropical pastures were used for animal grazing with the leguminous residuals aiding the next crop establishment, in the manner above.

This is not organic farming, although undoubtedly, using organic residuals over time will build soil carbon and enhance soil quality. In Africa, the tropical soils are often nutrient deficient, and yields are restricted by poor plant nutrition. Finding and adding those plant nutrients at low cost is near impossible, except for very small restricted areas - for example home gardens. Yes, it is undoubtedly true that soil mycorhiza can allow release of nutrients from otherwise non available sources, but the amounts are unlikely to be adequate to completely supply enough to grow good crops.

A new media release by the organic lobby in Australia uses a recent UNEP article that espouses the view that organic agriculture will radically improve African agriculture. Organic agriculture to be the saviour of Africa!

I am not so sure, except for those smaller areas. Yes, some of the soil carbon principles are important. BUT........this is not new for the tropics; it is nearly 40 years of old news, written up and published in eminent journals and as layman's reading, and acted on around the world in the tropics.

Read the media release and the link to the UNEP article.

It's Official: Organic farming provides answers to feeding Africa

A major study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concludes organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the long inherent cycle of poverty and malnutrition. (1)

Research conducted by UNEP suggests that organic, small-scale farming can deliver the increased yields which were thought to be the preserve of industrial high-tech farming, in addition to reversing environmental and social damages, leading to greater food security.

The head of the UN's Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, says the report "indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world may be far higher than many had supposed."(1)

Dr. Kristen Lyons is a senior lecturer at the School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences at Griffith University (QLD) and the director of Mukwano Australia, a non-for-profit group supporting the development of health care services in African organic farming communities.

"Organic agriculture offers an alternative - and sustainable - future for African farmers," says Dr. Lyons. She says the report provides a clear direction for reducing the current crisis in agriculture and food systems in developing countries - organic, all the way. "It demystifies the assumption that genetic engineering and other high-tech approaches to farming are required to feed the world.
"In contrast, it is organic farming systems that have demonstrated the greatest potential to feed the world's one billion starving people, and to ensure the long term sustainability of global food production," she says

The UNEP report proposes that African communities need to look to alternative methods of farming as genetic engineering is prohibitively expensive and therefore out of reach for most African farmers. (1)

Organic farming in Africa has lead to benefits to the natural environment, with the UNEP report showing a 93 per cent of case studies reporting benefits to soil fertility, water supply, flood control and biodiversity. (1)

Also, when sustainable agricultural practices, which covered a variety of systems and crops, were adopted, average crop yields increased by 79 per cent. (1)

Overall, the report found an increase in organic farming in Africa could lead to savings on production costs (due to no expenditure on synthetic inputs), promote economic viability and encourage food self-reliance. (1)

Data: (1) United Nations Conference on Trade and Development United Nations Environment Programme, Report: UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity-building Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development, Organic agriculture and food security in Africa, Unite Nations, New York and Geneva, 2008
[media release by BFA Australia]
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Of course this report is in contrast to recent publications about the need to boost food production, and fast in these areas.

The truth probably is somewhere in the middle. But I doubt, given the wide range of problems that interfere with accumulation of quality organic residuals in Africa, that enough can be accumulated to go totally organic. Embracing the work of the 70s and 80s to enhance establishment and reduce erosion is a vital start to improvement. The technology has been around for some time; getting it adopted widely is more difficult, and often social and machinery issues can interfere with adoption of promising technolgies.

BUT....it is not organic farming, as most people would define it.

The Politics of Food [and Agriculture]

A recent article that was reproduced in The Australian Financial Review in the Review section last Friday [ November 14] makes for interesting reading for anyone involved with agriculture and food production.

It was written by an eminent professor of economics at Oxford, so one could expect a fair bit of credence.

In the article he literally takes apart the spurious arguments over current thinking about food production and modern agriculture, and makes a seriously compelling case to jolt western civilisation out of the current complacency over world food production. Intertwined with this is a demolition of the current false thinking about GM crops, organic production and in which he pushes hard for some serious effort at improving food production in especially Africa. And of course he also berates the false and distorting subsidies given to agriculture in both Europe and the US.

Not too much gets away free.

BUT...........it is an excellent read and he makes some compelling issues.

The original full article is here -
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20081001faessay87605/paul-collier/the-politics-of-hunger.html
and it is definitely worth a read if you are even remotely interested in a role for modern agriculture.

As he sees it, agriculture in a number of countries is the industry to be in. Being an agricultural scientist, I would agree.

Free Range Eggs are Probably Not

It seems that only about one in three of those labelled as free range eggs actually are free range. At least in Australia.

That has a bit to do with the semantics of how free range is actually defined, but evidence shows about one million free range chooks EXCEPT that the markets indicate over 2.5 million seem to be around, based on the number of free range eggs that are labelled that way. And sold at much higher prices, too.

Each day, hundreds of thousands of barn-laid eggs are passed off as free range in an egg-substitution racket that costs Australian consumers billions of dollars each year, Ivy Inwood, the president of the Free Range Egg & Poultry Association of Australia, told The Sunday Age.

Two years ago, egg substitution was estimated to have cost consumers $13 million annually but the problem has become worse as the sale of free-range-branded eggs continues to soar, she said.
The true cost of the scam might never be known because proper records are not kept, and governments have left themselves effectively powerless to police the egg-substitution issue. "The ACCC has its hands tied because there are no agreed standards, they can't do anything," Mrs Inwood said. "You can call anything free range and get away with it."

Mrs Inwood has called on all Australian governments to urgently develop a nationwide, legally binding definition of free-range eggs, including how they should be produced.

Any new laws should require that laying hens be allowed out of sheds at first light, have adequate space for foraging and that all hens should be reared as free rangers from hatchlings.

"Over half the free-range eggs are falsely labelled because they're not coming from genuine free-range farms," Mrs Inwood said. "The public is paying big bikkies for these things, so we need to get genuine free-range eggs."

And this is following the recent news that really, free range eggs are no different to caged egg production in quality. Did they actually test free range eggs?

I cannot note any differences, except the outlandish high prices for free range eggs.

So should we be throwing mud at China?

Free Range Eggs are not What They're Cracked Up to Be

Almost a quarter of all eggs sold now are laid by free-range hens — even though they cost up to four times as much as cage eggs and their claims to superior taste and nutritional benefits are debatable.

Consumers are paying up to $9.50 a dozen for free-range eggs — about $6 more than the retail price of a dozen cage eggs, according to the Australian Egg Corporation. Despite the cost, consumption has steadily risen over the past decade and now 22pc — or nearly 45 million dozen — of all egg sales are free range. The corporation — which represents all egg producers — said some people opted for free-range eggs because of animal welfare concerns, but customer feedback showed most were prepared to pay extra for the eggs because they believed they were more nutritious, better for health and better tasting.

However, corporation spokeswoman Jacqueline Baptista said research had shown free-range eggs were no different from those laid by caged hens. "Our extensive research has shown there is no significant difference in nutrition or taste between both types of eggs," she said. "Consumer feedback is that some people buy them for the welfare aspect of hens but we believe that it is animal husbandry practice that determines welfare, rather than the actual production methods farmers use for their eggs."

Ms Baptista said caged hens often had better disease controls and protection from predators.

But the RSPCA argues that battery hens suffer from confinement in cages which do not allow them space to exercise or to carry out behaviours such as wing flapping, dust bathing and foraging.

Free-range farmers say consumers believe it is worth paying more to know the eggs have come from "contented hens that range freely during daylight hours over natural sunny pastures" and return to sheds at night for roosting and laying.

But the research is now in.......there is no difference in quality. Why pay more, especially when the middle man or retailer is really the one that profits, not the farmers.

[partially sourced from Australian Egg Corporation media release]

Improve Soil Carbon for Higher Yields

Benefits of building soil organic matter go beyond sequestering carbon.

Increasing plant-available water capacity, maintaining better soil structure and improving yields were important benefits from building soil organic matter according to a key speaker at the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) Update at Manangatang on August 19.

Dr Peter Fisher of the Victorian Department of Primary Industries told more than 100 growers attending that while soil organic carbon levels could be boosted by increasing soil organic matter, the benefits went beyond measures to reduce climate impacts. Dr Fisher said trials at irrigated sites in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales found that increasing soil organic matter throughput – the rate at which it is added to the soil to be broken down and recycled – over several years would boost soil carbon levels. “At the paired sites studied, every tonne per hectare per year of extra above- and below-ground organic matter – maintained for 10 years – resulted in approximately 0.2 per cent higher soil carbon,” he said. “This increase is greater than most carbon modelling suggests.” Dr Fisher said the experiment had demonstrated a clear relationship between higher levels of organic soil matter and higher yields.

“Yield benefits from higher soil carbon values are very hard to measure and there is little reported data,” he said. “This is because soil carbon changes occur slowly, and thus the impacts are difficult to separate from other factors. “These trials compared long-term yields from paired paddocks with low and high soil organic matter levels.

At sites where wheat and canola have been grown for the past 10 years, the average yields for each paddock with high organic matter levels were equal to or higher than yields from paddocks with low organic matter. “The results are quite startling, and although it’s not scientific proof, the data does constitute convincing evidence for growers.”

While this data covers only the typical temperate grain farming areas, it is indicative of the facts.......improving the soil carbon can lead to higher yields. Other work also investigated issues surrounding fertiliser usage, availability and soil retention of nutrients. More benefits.

Can you afford NOT to consider using management practices that build soil carbon?

[partially sourced from GRDC media reports]

Glomalin - Not Heard of it Then Take Note - THE Soil Carbon Fixer

A soil constituent known as glomalin provides a secure vault for the world's soil carbon. That’s according to Kristine Nichols, a microbiologist at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory in North Dakota, USA.

Glomalin is a sticky substance secreted by threadlike fungal structures called hyphae that funnel nutrients and water to plant roots. Glomalin acts like little globs of chewing gum on strings or strands of plant roots and the fungal hyphae. Into this sticky “string bag” fall the sand, silt and clay particles that make up soil, along with plant debris and other carbon-containing organic matter. The sand, silt and clay stick to the glomalin, starting aggregate formation, a major step in soil creation.

On the surface of soil aggregates, glomalin forms a lattice-like waxy coating to keep water from flowing rapidly into the aggregate and washing away everything, including the carbon. As the builder of the formation “bag” for soil, glomalin is vital globally to soil building, productivity and sustainability, as well as to carbon storage.
Nichols uses glomalin measurements to gauge which farming or rangeland practices work best for storing carbon. Since glomalin levels can reflect how much carbon each practice is storing, they could be used in conjunction with carbon credit trading programs.

In studies on cropland, Nichols has found that both tilling and leaving land idle--as is common in arid regions--lower glomalin levels by destroying living hyphal fungal networks. The networks need live roots and do better in undisturbed soil.

When glomalin binds with iron or other heavy metals, it can keep carbon from decomposing for up to 100 years.
Even without heavy metals, glomalin stores carbon in the inner recesses of soil particles where only slow-acting microbes live.

This carbon in organic matter is also saved, like a slow-release fertilizer, for later use by plants and hyphae.

Glomalin is one of the factors that help build soil carbon stores. Othes include biochar or agrichar, another form of macro carbon materials, said to be the underlying factor aiding high productivity of terra preta soils in Brazil.

Restoring Mined Land

Vermont visionary wins first Fuller Award with green plan for Appalachia.

In the quest for coal, over a million and a half acres of Appalachia have been strip-mined, whole mountains removed, trillions of gallons of toxic slurry left behind, and communities devastated.

Not exactly a promising place for a new green economy to arise.

Or maybe it is.

For his startling and bold proposal to clean-up this disaster, Comprehensive Design for a Carbon Neutral World: The Challenge of Appalachia, John Todd, a research professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, won the first annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

The $100,000 prize from the Buckminster Fuller Institute was awarded in a ceremony in New York City on June 23, 2008 at the Center for Architecture.

"Dr. Todd's proposal sets forth a profound vision to heal the environmental and economic scars of the Appalachian region and a detailed strategy to build a dynamic sustainable economic basis for lasting renewal," wrote the award jury in picking his submission out of entries from around the world.

The jurors, including Vandana Shiva and William McDonough, were impressed with how Todd proposed to "use biological processes to restore degraded coal lands in Appalachia, and use the process to return atmospheric carbon to the soil," they wrote. To develop his proposal, Todd—who was named a "Hero of the Earth," by Time Magazine in 1999—drew on the concept of ecological succession. Over time, damaged land can rebuild soils, support pioneer plants and grasses, then shrubs, fast-growing trees, and finally, a mature forest. Todd has taken this classic idea of ecology and applied to the human economy.

"Deep in Nature's operating instructions is a model of future economic development," he said, "and these instructions can guide us as we seek new ways of living," in the mountainous coal-laced region that extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama.

Todd's proposal outlines four stages of recovery and development. In the first, healing is the primary focus. Drawing on his extensive experience with "living machines"—biological technologies that echo natural systems to produce clean water and environmental clean-up—Todd foresees plant-based systems that will detoxify the vast lagoons of coal slurry in the region, build new healthy soils, and yield raw products for economic purposes. "Coal miners and some of their machinery could be employed in the process," he notes.

In the second stage, reforestation begins. Some reclaimed land will be dedicated to short-rotation fast-growing woody crops to be harvested for biomass. Other long-standing forests will capture carbon from the atmosphere, slowing global warming.

In the third stage, the economic benefits of the biomass emerge. "Already suitable Appalachian wind sites have been discovered that can provide competitive sources of energy," Todd writes, "paired with another renewable energy source like woody biomass from willows and poplars, a viable energy system can be developed."

And this biomass can be used not just for electricity but for "refining fuels, and manufacturing a wide range of products ranging from plastics to polymers and adhesives," he says.

In the fourth stage, succession is at work not just in the land but in human communities and management of the land. Initially, philanthropic organizations would purchase damaged sites and shepherd their recovery. These restored lands would be passed along to new capitalized corporations that would develop forestry and other businesses there.

Then, following their mandates, these companies would divest the land to employees and qualified land stewards, restoring an ownership culture to impoverished communities. Finally, the process would begin again on other newly acquired lands.

And this replication process could extend far beyond Appalachia, presenting a method for increasing carbon storage in soils around the world and a model for reclaiming "coal-fields from Afghanistan to areas of Poland and Eastern Europe where coal has been extracted in devastating ways," the jury wrote. Because of its sweeping scope, the jury felt that Todd's proposal embodied the vision of social transformation sought by Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), an architect, author and futurist best known for designing the geodesic dome.

"My father identified himself as a Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Scientist," said Allegra Fuller Snyder, Fuller's daughter, in a release. "My father, who knew, and admired, Dr. Todd's work in the 1970s, would certainly agree" that Todd too embodied this broad label. "Nature has had 3 billion years to experiment," Todd said. "So why shouldn't we learn from that about how to go about our business now?" "This is a struggle of mythic proportions. Big Coal is very powerful, but what will eventually stop them is a carbon tax on producers," he said.

Then, he believes, begins a carbon-neutral post-coal future for Appalachia that could have a working economy with a decade. As this struggle proceeds, John Todd believes that his proposal can "inject into the process a sense of alternative hope," he said.


This article appeared in ENN News on 24 June 2008. However, the concept regarding the early regenerative processes is similar to the soil rebuilding processes in desert soils and subsequently has been researched by the CRC for Mine Reclamation in WA, Australia in relation to mines in the low rainfall regions of Western Australia......currently the worlds quarry for iron ore!

It is the classic sequence of using organic matter - potentially coming form organic waste - to rebuild the biology of soils. Along the path, soil physical conditions are also rebuild, often due to biological activity of larger creatures such as insects, worms and similar organisms.

In tropical regions this process is relatively quick........with warmth and rainfall aiding the processes. Even gardeners commencing with a bare, soil damaged house block can see these processes transform their land in a few short years.