Manure

[Mozbee]

Well said Tasha.

I keep reading that the meat industry is now financially backed up by the leather industry too.

[John]

It is almost impossible to use or buy anything that hasn't benefited from the use of animals: . . . The important battle is that of decreasing animal breeding for meat. If we can win that, the rest will follow!

Yes, we are boycotting flesh but we are also creating a new way of life. Most people believe that it is impossible to live without exploiting animals. We are trying to prove them wrong in all areas--not just meat. Even if they are now using animal products in rubber, for instance, these animals products are not essential for the production of this material. Whether the cruelty industry fails or not, we will prove that there is an alternative to cruelty.

[monkey60613]

Also, is it important from a vegan standpoint to buy organic veggies? Or is that just for health in general?

I'm a newby. Thanks...

[Bunny]

I am reasonably new too and I expect I will get it all wrong, but unless the horses are pinned in a stall and forced to crap... I would say the veggies were still vegan.

I think from a vegan point of view organic veggies are better as then less chemicals can make their way into the food chain, leach into rivers or otherwise harm living creatures.

THey are more expensive though, so I guess we just all do our best .

[Mr Flibble]

Hi, welcome to the forum

You'll quickly find answers to most of your questions using the search facility on this site and google. Lots of things have been discussed and it's generally best to read through and make replies to those as opposed to starting new threads as it keeps the forum tidy and benefits you as lots of people will have already contributed. On the subject of organic and vegan organic (veganic) there's a long thread with poll here and excellent information from the UK vegan society here.

[monkey60613]

You're response cracked me up!

Hey I wouldn't put it past us humans to come up with a new way to torture animals (forcing them to crap!)

Thanks!!

[feral]

Don't they use animal blood in organic farming though?

[snaffler]

Ok I live in Somerset Dung is part of life it's our only form of oxygen around here.

You have got to be realistic about this OK if a farm aint using dung they are using chemicals, even organic farming has a small amount of permitted chemical usage.

All of us on here even the youngest ones will never see a vegan world, and dung will always be here, we can't change that but it we stop eating meat we are stopping the direct abuse and slaughter of animals.

Their is no perfect answer but almost all veg has had some dung on it at some point, if you don't eat veg your going to DIE their is no answer to this, it's just something we got to except, we can not change everything in the world.

[rantipole]

You can compost and use that as fertilizer without using dung or chemicals. However, there is almost no way to know if your produce was fertilized with dung, bone, blood, or fish. The only way to be sure is to buy veganic, which just isn't readily available in most areas. I just don't worry about this, and I prefer to buy organic which may have been fertilized with animal parts rather than inorganic which is loaded up with chemicals that cause the deaths of countless insects and birds and rodents, contaminate the soil and water for generations, pose a health risk to the growers and harvesters (often poor migrants), and may give me cancer and other health problems.

Cheers,
rant

[cedarblue]

we make do with the compost heap x 2 in our garden - it seems to do the trick.

[veganbikerboy]

the vegan organic trust are trying to get 'veganic' produce recognised with a standard symbol for labelling (much like we often look for the vegan society logo). This would allow us to know which produce has not been produced using animal products.

It is difficult, at the moment wines and ports that are filtered using animal bones are not considered vegan, but if you use the bones to fertilize veg thats ok.

I grow alot of vegan organic food, but buy normal produce from the shops - you can only do your best.

[veganbikerboy]

what about human poo?

i believe processed human excrement is now used on some crops? is it vegan

[kokopelli]

Omnivore human manure would be even less vegan than cow manure, I suppose. I use composted vegan human manure but only on non-edible crops, as a precaution against spreading disease. Composted human manure was once used widely in the Far East, but cholera outbreaks occasionally resulted if the composting process didn't reach high enough temperatures to kill pathogens.

Also, people flush all kinds of nasty chemicals, drugs etc down their toilets, so the residues must end up in the compost. Not too nice a thought!

[Cairidh]

If you never buy food grown with animal manure you'll never buy anything except from homegrowers veganic farming which is virtually impossible.
If you're bothered try freeganism. It's the only way not to buy anything that has involved the suffering of an animal.

[veganbikerboy]

i think, unfortunatley, you can only do your best - which tends to be a damn sight more than teh majority of the population do.

I am trying to grow as much of my own produce as possible to further reduce the amount of my money that goes to producers that use animal products.

[herbwormwood]

what about human poo?

i believe processed human excrement is now used on some crops?

Here is a link about composting human poo for you. The answer is yes.
http://www.cat.org.uk/information/ca...URRENTdatarq=0

[rantipole]

Here is a link about composting human poo for you. The answer is yes.
http://www.cat.org.uk/information/ca...URRENTdatarq=0

That was fascinating! If I ever own my own home, I will certainly look into this, and also solar panels. Cool.

Cheers,
rant

[lozza]

sorry i dont have time to read all the replies in this thread just yet..i will come back to it.

but i got 'the animal free shopper' book, the most recent one.. and there was an ad about organic foods..and it was basically saying be careful, because if you support organic food, you support the meat trade, cos of the fertiliser used.. i dont know if i believe this.

but..what are we supposed to buy then?! doesnt leave much else! i'm not sure if it was just a ploy to get you to buy THEIR organic produce, cos theirs is better, no way connected with animals etc...i dunno!

[terrace max]

John said this last year:

Yes, we are boycotting flesh but we are also creating a new way of life. Most people believe that it is impossible to live without exploiting animals. We are trying to prove them wrong in all areas--not just meat.

Sometimes I think we vegans concentrate a little too much on what we consume, rather than what we can provide. Only a vegan household can achieve something like an ecological and ethical solution in food production. No mean feat...

If you picture yourself growing most of your food vegan-organically - using compost, green manures, vegan 'humanure' to condition and enrich your soil, and a no-dig method to protect soil-life - this avoids all the ethical and environmental problems associated with conventional and organic agriculture. Hardly any waste, hardly any harm to others.

I realise this scenario may seem pretty remote from most peoples' lives (although how food production became such an arcane topic I don't know...) But it's nice to know that the practical conclusion of veganism is not only possible but nothing short of the holy grail of environmentalism too...funny how different forms of non-violence always converge like this.

(And anyway, surely animal manure is about as vegan as leather...)

[rantipole]

John said this last year:



Sometimes I think we vegans concentrate a little too much on what we consume, rather than what we can provide. Only a vegan household can achieve something like an ecological and ethical solution in food production. No mean feat...

If you picture yourself growing most of your food vegan-organically - using compost, green manures, vegan 'humanure' to condition and enrich your soil, and a no-dig method to protect soil-life - this avoids all the ethical and environmental problems associated with conventional and organic agriculture. Hardly any waste, hardly any harm to others.

I realise this scenario may seem pretty remote from most peoples' lives (although how food production became such an arcane topic I don't know...) But it's nice to know that the practical conclusion of veganism is not only possible but nothing short of the holy grail of environmentalism too...funny how different forms of non-violence always converge like this.

Wow! Can you be my second boyfriend? I am really eager to own land and start growing as much of my own food as possible--veganically, of course. I love being vegan, but I agree that we vegans sometimes concentrate too much on what we eat and exclude rather than on what we can do to change things. Buying things, even vegan things, will not change the world in a large enough way. It's good, certainly. But, maybe we need to start working on a larger canvas.

Of course, I'm sitting in my office right now being a corporate wage-slave, so what do I know?

Cheers,
rant

[herbwormwood]

sorry i dont have time to read all the replies in this thread just yet..i will come back to it.

but i got 'the animal free shopper' book, the most recent one.. and there was an ad about organic foods..and it was basically saying be careful, because if you support organic food, you support the meat trade, cos of the fertiliser used.. i dont know if i believe this.

but..what are we supposed to buy then?! doesnt leave much else! i'm not sure if it was just a ploy to get you to buy THEIR organic produce, cos theirs is better, no way connected with animals etc...i dunno!

I have not seen the most recent edition of the animal free shopper but if you could tell us the name of the company or provide a weblink to them we could say if it sounds like an advertising ploy?

Personally I buy organic when I can because conventional agriculture is poisoning and destroying our planet with the use of pesticides and fertilisers, poisoning and destroying wild animals' habitats with mechanised monoculture, and torturing and enslaving millions of "food producing" animals.

[lozza]

its at home, i will have a look and come back and post the link/name of company.

[eco]

I have not seen the most recent edition of the animal free shopper but if you could tell us the name of the company or provide a weblink to them we could say if it sounds like an advertising ploy?

The advert is for the vegan organic network.

[IndigoSea]

Good lord, I have NO idea where this should go! "animal products" seemed sort of right though.

So yes, it's a serious question. I'm talking manure fertilizers here.
I like to garden, and I like it to be organic and au naturale, and I'd like to use a natural fertilizer, not a packaged manufactured one (which can contain bone meal and other such obviously non-vegan things) but is manure... vegan? I know it's technically an animal product, but it is a pure waste product.

I'm really totally at a loss here. I'm a relativly new vegan (3 months and counting) so I'm really still in the process of getting these things down.

Thoughts?

[Daffy]

I was about to say, "I guess vegans produce vegan poo", but I can see that that is not going to be a helpful addition to this topic...*lol*

[Imapeach]

lol @ Daffy

Granted I am not a gardener in any sense of the word. But from what I understand you need to consider how far your veganism extends. Personally, I do not like giving my money to companies that exploit animals. So, I guess with poo-based fertilisers you need to think about where the poo comes from. I assume in most cases it is excess waste from animals that are raised on farms. Animals that will eventually be used for human consumption. I wouldn't want my money going to that.

But isn't there some way you can make your own compost from vegan products? Maybe that's an alternative. But I don't even know if compost does the same job as fertiliser!

[my3labs]

I wouldn't really consider it vegan since it's probably coming from farm animals. If you had some rescued cows and used their manure I would say "go for it", but otherwise...I wouldn't. But that's just me.
I grow all of our veggies strictly from soil and water and you should see my tomatoes! They're huge!!

[aubergine]

I find this a difficult topic, but I have something to consider...

Not all soil is fertile enough to grow vegetables, plants etc. So if you're going to use fertilizer then you can either use horse manure, or chemical fertilizers which don't do the soil much good, and pollute our waterways.

I think I'd rather use manure. Even if humans didn't use horses they'd be literally tons of it around, and we doing good to our earth by making use of it instead of increasing the pollution we cause.

That's just my view though

[IndigoSea]

Yeah, horse manure seems fine as horses are pets, but I suppose it really does depend on where it comes from and if it costs money or not (I've seen people giving it away)
Food compost is also pretty good too, and I guess that would be the best thing, you know, to be totally in the clear.

[Abascas]

not sure if this belongs here or the main forum, but i figured it would be here. but yes, i'm guessing everyone understands what i'm saying with the title. doesn't most produce get fertalized with manure? so yeah, info would be cool.

[twinkle]

I believe most conventionally produced food is fertilized with inorganic compounds - usually potassium, nitrogen and... I forget the other one... (edited to add - phosphorus!)

Organic food may use animal manure which has been composted down, or it may be veganic, as in using composted matter of plant origin.

[Korn]

In a vegan world, there would be a lot more animals around, because there wouldn't be any hunting. There would also be easy access to veganic/organic food.

Unless we are of the self-exhausting types, having ideals that are so difficult to live by that we we give up living according to our viewpoints all together, we will constantly need to accept the fact that we live in a non-vegan world. IMO it's not legitimate to expect a vegan to never eat organic food if eg. cow dung has been used as a fertilizer - we simply live in a world where this is happening everywhere - they also often use cow dung when growing plants using chemical fertilizers. Currently, there is pretty much no way to avoid it, or at least no way to avoid it without a lot of hassle. Nobody are expecting vegans not to have viewpoints about other issues than animal/non-animal related topics either. And sometimes our various viewpoints, like preferring food not being exposed to chemical fertilizers or pesticides may conflict with buy organic tomatoes grown with pee from pigs used as a fertilizers - pigs living in captivity waiting to become killed and sold in supermarkets as food.


Veganism is defined as "a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment". Note the words 'seek to' and 'as far as practical and possible'.

What is 'practical and possible'? It all depends. If your neighbor is a farmer growing plants in an organic/veganic way, it's easy to avoid plants grown using animal products. If there's a shop where you live selling veganic/organic vegetables, it's 'practical and possible' too - but vegans are not expected to order tomatoes and broccoli via mail order catalogues!

Some of the written definitions of vegan is focusing on avoiding animal products without mentioning avoiding these products has a reason. I've been to villages in India where people build small houses using cow dung - they gather it fresh and make a paste out of it, and it becomes hard when it dries. No, the houses doesn't smell. Cows and other animals are walking freely around in these areas: they are not killed, kept in captivity or harmed in any way when the villagers are collecting their dung. The dung isn't sold as a commercial product, but since the animals go around everywhere, humans remove it anyway, and instead of just throwing it into the woods, they use it.

I don't see anything unvegan about collecting dung from animals walking freely around and using it (except one thing... read on*) - after all, the main thing about 'vegan' is not to harm or kill others, and not to create a set of stiff rules to follow when those rules doesn't make sense or are impossible to live by. I don't live in a society where moose, zebras, yak, elephants, cows, horses, donkeys or giraffes are walking freely around in the streets or in the forest/jungle - nobody is collecting dung from wild animals here, so I don't need to theorize around whether using dung from a wild elephant is vegan or not. But I know that the 'as far as practical and possibly'-thing is not only an essential part of the definition of vegan, but important for everybody who doesn't only stick to mainstream viewpoints - about polictics, environment... about anything. Just by paying tax you are probably putting a lot of money into activities you don't support, and if you sit on chair, drink of a cup or use a fork without having checked the economy of the company that made that chair, you may have supported something you didn't want to support. Maybe the owner donates money to the political party you are least happy with. But we are not supposed to exhaust ourselves, that would only kill every group of alternative thinking people.

* There is a reason a product using animal products shouldn't be called vegan even if no animals were killed or harmed using the animals product it contains. I don't want to go to a vegan restaurant in some remote area, and discover some meat or egg in a salad - because the chef thinks that it's vegan to use meat from animals killed in a car accident ('it was dead anyway'), or if he believes that using eggs from rescued hens doesn't harm the hens, because the 'eggs are lying around anyway'. If people buy a vegan product, it never has milk, meat, leather, honey or eggs etc. in it.

[terrace max]

I agree there's little use, per se, in saying food produced using manure, crushed bones etc. isn't vegan (although it isn't per se).

However, I think it is useful to disseminate the information that our food can, and should, be grown without any animal inputs. Most vegans don't contemplate this, let alone everyone else.

Korn, I can't agree with your scenario involving the collection of wild animal dung: given the quantities involved, you'd use more energy collecting the stuff than you'd get from eating the crops you produced. Composting vegan human 'waste' is much simpler and more effective every time IMO.

I'd also dispute whether horse manure is ok on a number of levels, not least because it's full of the medication regularly given to horses, worming compounds and the like...

Anyway, I'm off for a lie down, I'm exhausting myself

[Korn]

Korn, I can't agree with your scenario involving the collection of wild animal dung: given the quantities involved, you'd use more energy collecting the stuff than you'd get from eating the crops you produced.

What I'm saying is that I've been to places where people actually do collect dung from wild animals, and they obviously do it because it makes sense to them. For example, it is common to put some dung in the soil once before planting tomatoes, and in an environment where wild animals live close by - or in India, where cow's are found everywhere, I wouldn't say that there would be anything unethical about using that dung to make his tomatoes grow bigger or faster. It would take him a minute, wouldn't harm anyone, and shouldn't be very exhausting.

Anyway, in these societies, the soil is probably a lot reacher then the over-processed soil here. Even if the manure isn't picked up, it's brought into the soil and nutrient circulation whenever it's raining.

[aubergine]

I'd also dispute whether horse manure is ok on a number of levels, not least because it's full of the medication regularly given to horses, worming compounds and the like...

Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

[herbwormwood]

What I'm saying is that I've been to places where people actually do collect dung from wild animals, and they obviously do it because it makes sense to them. For example, it is common to put some dung in the soil once before planting tomatoes, and in an environment where wild animals live close by - or in India, where cow's are found everywhere, I wouldn't say that there would be anything unethical about using that dung to make his tomatoes grow bigger or faster. It would take him a minute, wouldn't harm anyone, and shouldn't be very exhausting.

Anyway, in these societies, the soil is probably a lot reacher then the over-processed soil here. Even if the manure isn't picked up, it's brought into the soil and nutrient circulation whenever it's raining.

I used to get vegetables from an organic farm where they kept a horse, mainly for its manure. It was a big horse and it made lots. I had no problem eating their vegetables. I also know that some people go into the street when the police horses have passed and collect their droppings for their allotments.

[terrace max]

Just to clarify: this is an issue of scale. If you want to enhance the growth of one of two tomato plants then I guess it might be practical to collect wild animal manure. If you're growing enough tomato plants to feed a vegan family, let alone generate a surplus, I'd suggest it wasn't.

In any event, it seems a bit odd to me to be chasing around after another vegan's poo when you'll find a good source if you look in the mirror.

Even if the manure isn't picked up, it's brought into the soil and nutrient circulation whenever it's raining.

I'd suggest this natural enrichment of uncultivated areas is the ideal 'use' for wild animal manure.

I used to get vegetables from an organic farm where they kept a horse, mainly for its manure. It was a big horse and it made lots. I had no problem eating their vegetables. I also know that some people go into the street when the police horses have passed and collect their droppings for their allotments.

I have a problem with a horse being held captive for its manure or to provide transport for the police and, therefore, would try and avoid its by-products.

[herbwormwood]

I have a problem with a horse being held captive for its manure or to provide transport for the police and, therefore, would try and avoid its by-products.

I see your point and it is completely valid of course.
Personally I would not have a problem with horse manure in those contexts. The first horse lived in a decent sized field, the second work for their living like many humans do. In an ideal world they would be free of human bondage but we don't live in an ideal world. As long as they are humanely treated I would not boycott their poo. I would not pay for it, I would draw the line at paying. If I paid, I would benefit their captors.

[soilman]

vegandrummersam

Not all soil is fertile enough to grow vegetables, plants etc. So if you're going to use fertilizer then you can either use horse manure, or chemical fertilizers which don't do the soil much good, and pollute our waterways.

I think I'd rather use manure. Even if humans didn't use horses they'd be literally tons of it around, and we doing good to our earth by making use of it instead of increasing the pollution we cause.

Just to clarify, the word manure (noun) means any material you add to soil for the purpose of improving it. Animal excrement (urine and feces) is one material that can be used as a manure, that is, it is one material you could manure (verb) your soil with, is excrement, but it is incorrect to use manure as a precise synonym for animal excrement.

It is true that not all soil is fertile enough. And soil that is fertile enough, will remain at least slightly productive for 5 seasons at the most, without taking steps to improve it. These include compost, cover crops, green manures, and cultivation of nitrogen-fixing ecosystems. However it is not true that the only choices for manure are animal matter and industrially produced plant food. There is also compost, and green manures (plants grown for the purpose of being composted elsewhere or for the purpose of being turned into the soil to decompose right were they are grown). While it is impossible to get the same kind of yield from compost and green manures as it is from industrially produced plant food, it is still possible to get a halfway decent yield, of some crops.

See http://shakahara.com/food3.html#excrement Also see the link at the bottom.

Also see http://shakahara.com/food.shtml#plant_nutrients and scroll down to "We need air, water, and green plants" if you don't get taken there automatically.

And http://hollandimac.chem.rochester.edu/n2cycle.pdf

Note that before the invention and use of the Haber Process to produce nitrogen plant food from the nitrogen in the air and the hydrogen in natural gas or petroleum, the very best yield that farmers could get, was only about 3/5 of the yield that farmers can get today. In most cases, farmers were getting lower yields. For example rice was grown in China, and other parts of Asia, using nitrogen-fixing Azolla ferns and other techniques to provide nitrogen plant food to the rice plants, with a rice yield per acre of only about 3/5 of that obtained today in the USA and Japan, by using systems that involve manurial application of Haber-Process nitrogen. Still, the yield using the Azolla fern system alone, seems remarkable to me, considering that rice growers often had much lower yields per acre — 1/4 or less of the yield that is common today — and often still produced enough rice to feed everyone, and considering that there was little scientific understanding of how Azolla fern worked, and how excrement worked.

I need to make something clear: before the introduction of Haber process N, there was not tons of animal excrement around. Farmers used up all of the excrement they could get their hands on, and still the soil did not have enough nitrogen, and European farmers could not produce enough to eat. The reason excrement is plentiful now is: animal agriculture is more prevalent. But WHY is animal agriculture more prevalent? Because there is more plant food to feed the animals; plant agriculture has a higher yield. And why does plant agriculture have a higher yield? Because of one key reason: there is more nitrogen plant food available, as a result of the Haber Process that produces cheap and plentiful nitrogen plant food from air and natural gas or petroleum. Before the advent of Haber-Process nitrogen (circa 1915) European farmers were always running out of excrement, and searching for other sources of N, or having to abandon depleted soil and seek new farmland. Nitrogen plant food is the key ingredient in soil that is depleted first, and that limits food production, and it is also the key ingredient in plant and animal matter, substance. Plant amino acids and proteins, as well as animal and human proteins (made from plant protein), require nitrogen. While we can have energy without N, we need N for our cytoplasm, for out very substance, and for the stored substance-construction plans: it is also needed for the nucleic acids of our chromosomes. While oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, are relatively abundant (needed by plants and animals for energy and substance), soil nitrogen that plants can use (needed for plant and animla substance), is often in short supply, and is usually the limiting element.

Thus it is THE OTHER WAY AROUND: we dont have plenty of excrement around because it is naturally plentiful. We have excrement around because we produce so much Haber Process nitrogen from air and natural gas or petroleum. Yet today, even with the rise in cost of oil and natural gas, using excrement is still a much much more expensive way to feed plants, than using Haber Process nitrogen. And if we were to be successful at putting an end to animal agriculture, as many of us are hoping will happen, there would be virtually zero animal excrement. So to have a future world where veganism is the norm, rather than the exception, it is of vital importance that we find a way to feed N to our plants that doesn't depend on animal excrement. We need to start getting in practice now — get ready for a future of steadily declining supplies of animal excrement. It makes no sense to, on the one hand, say "I hope people will raise and kill less animals" and on the other hand, say "I hope they will feed the plants they grow to feed humans, with animal excrement from all the animals that are raised." That would be a self-defeating attitude. We need to start getting in practice now, using farming systems that will enable us to feed ourselves, after all of Vegan Outreach's pamphlets work, and the world goes vegan. If we want to avoid using Haber-process N, we will need to get N from decaying plant matter, and nitrogen fixing systems. And, anyway, excrement is really just compost where the compost bin is an animal's gastro-intestinal tract instead of wood — and the animal's body "steals" some of the nutrients in the compost for its own use, leaving only some of it behind, due to its basic inefficiency at stealing it.

Excessive manuring with excrement is just as much a cause of eutrophication of rivers and streams, as is excessive manuring with Haber-process nitrogen. The key to keeping nitrogen in the soil, preventing it from seeping away, is improving the tilth by adding organic matter. Organic matter slows down the leaching away of nitrogen. It also supplies nitrogen, and thus the same maximum yields can be achieved with less Haber-process nitrogen.

[soilman]

"If I paid, I would benefit their captors."

You still benefit their captors, although perhaps less, if you haul it away, as otherwise they would have to pay to have it hauled away. By not using it, you force them to pay for disposing of it.

[herbwormwood]

I don't benefit their captors as I don't use manure.

Police horses shit in the street here and no one pays for it to be hauled away. If people (not me, by the way) didn't collect it it would just stay there like all the oher waste. And on a vegetable farm where a horse is is well treated and is the only non human animal, I doubt that anyone would need to pay to take the manure away.

[soilman]

"on a vegetable farm where a horse is is well treated and is the only non human animal,"

While you could use the excrement from such a horse, according to what I understand, the amount of excrement produced by one horse would not be enough to feed the amount of plants needed to feed that one horse — and once you used up all the excrement, to feed the plants that feed the horse, there would be none left to feed plants that feed the people who live with the horse. It is a consequence of a law of physics — the law non-perpetual motion. No system produces enough energy as an output, to run the system.

This amount of excrement would reduce the amount of nitrogen plant food needed, to feed the plants needed to feed the horse, by a very significant amount, but you would still need lots and lots of nitrogen plant food from outside sources, to get enough plants to feed one horse, or you would have to buy plants, that were farmed elsewhere, to feed the horse. And you would need even more excrement, to feed the people. The same thing applies if you collect the excrement produced by the people — it won't be enough. It will make a noticable dent in the amount of nitrogen plant food you will have to get from outside sources, but you will still have to find more nitrogen plant food. We just don't produce enough excrement to feed the plants we need, to feed us. The laws of physics tell us it is impossible.

The question that remains is what percentage of the nitrogen we consume is made into our bodily material, and what percentage passes out in the form of urine and feces. If their are any experts who can give us an answer, that would be nice.

[satirecafe]

This was very informative! This is slightly off topic, but personally I don't understand why we don't use human shit (excuse the language) as manure instead of polluting the sea with it!

[flutterby]

Theres more info on the topic in the 'human waste as fertlizer' thread, see http://veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11573

[RedWellies]

the amount of excrement produced by one horse would not be enough to feed the amount of plants needed to feed that one horse .

Ha, don't you believe that. Large horses sure do poo a lot!! One of mine fills a wheelbarrow every day!! Putting horse poo as fertiliser on grass/hay that a horse will eat is not a good idea though because it could lead to a high worm burden. I wonder if we'd have the same problems if we used untreated sewage?

[monkey60613]

An Omni I know, who has an organic farm where she raises goats, chickens, etc. (and who also loves to rain on the vegan parade every chance she gets) posted this recently on an AR forum I belong to:

File this under "stuff to think about":

Guess what industrial crop farms use for fertilizer to grow all those veggies?
Yea, manure -from industrial farmed animals. Yup, that beautiful tomato
or spinach people are eating, is a result of manure sprayed on the veggie crops --came from an industrial livestock farm that treated pigs & other livestock like prisoners! That industrial farm "torture camp" furnishes manure to crop producers http://news. tradingcharts. com/futures/ 0/0/90897500. html

They are also turning the manure into "biomass" (energy) from the excess waste of cows, pigs, poultry and other livestock. --So, everyone will enjoy being toasty as a result of the same thing --pig crap. I guess you have research pretty deep when to champion a cause, huh. See: http://news. tradingcharts. com/futures/ 7/9/90642297. html

And home gardeners? Uh...Jobe's Fertilizer Spikes ... bat droppings collected from caves. And other fertilizers are made from "trash fish" (after the tasty usable/eatible fish are removed) as a result of long line fishing & trawling in the deep ocean. I wonder if people consider all this stuff when buying veggies? I mean, everytime you buy veggies -you are keeping the industrial farms & deep ocean terrorists in business. So... what are your alternatives?

I mean -being a vegan is tough enough when you live in the city and buy from stores because you don't have a clue of where the food came from or how it was grown! And then you go home and sit in your armchair and munch on Spinach that was sprayed with industrial manure waste -and find out a week later that the Spinach has been tainted with E-coli ...and think? Gee? I thought I was eating healthy! (remember the spinach e-coli scare a few weeks back?) And now it is peanut butter that is poisoning us ... that historical American staple of school lunchboxes.

No -none of this affects me. I raise my own foods here and I have to muck out the barn a few times a year and all that goes into the compost heap and then to the garden. But -- industrial livestock waste isn't really composted. It is watered down and liquified -and then sprayed with huge jet-sprayers on the crops. They use to call those big manure tanks "honey wagons"... such a twist of irony there. I guess that explains the E-coli problem.... but it still is a result of industrial torture farms.

This is very discouraging to me. I certainly don't want to support agri-business, but what are our alternatives? I just potted a tomato plant for my patio, and I looked on the back of the bag of potting soil and it listed "chicken droppings".

[cobweb]

This person is simply trying to make themself feel superior and/or guilt-free . There's a lot of horrible stuff sprayed on farm crops, including sewage. All you can do is try to buy from local organic sources where possible.

Of course if no-one ate animal flesh then vegetables would be grown without the use of animal based products, there are vegan-organic alternatives . So the more people that eat a vegetable based diet the less call there is for 'torture farms' until eventually they simply won't exist. Til then I don't think we can fairly take the blame for buying vegetables as we don't have the choice about how they are grown, we just have to buy responsibly and grow our own where possible! .

[monkey60613]

thanks cobweb.

p.s. ooh, I just love your signature line!

[Sluggie]

Her point about biomass is ridiculous. Does she think it would be more ethical not to use all that manure and just let it be washed into the water system? Of course it would be better if the animals weren't farmed and weren't there to produce it in the first place, but they are, and their waste needs to be dealt with. If it can be used for fuel, well and good.

[twinkle]

gah!