I am new to this forum and so I am unsure of the etiquette in posting.
I have not seen anything here on composting....
I believe compost is a blanket with which we can heal our planet. Imagine for a moment all the food 'waste' created around the world by grocery stores, large farms, restaurants, homes, turned into a nutrient rich soil like substance. This substance, when properly turned, treated with purposeful intent (it cannot just sit there like in the olden days or the micro-organism do not get the right amount of oxygen to do their work), it becomes full of the vitamins and nutrients that were left in the food 'waste'. This end product, which usually takes 180 days to create (or less), with the right balance of N:P:K (Nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium) and humidity can REGENERATE top soil, reverse erosion, re-mineralize soil and improve the water retention of existing soil to create better crop yields (reducing desertification). It is an amazing gift from both science and nature. AND it is elegant in its simplicity.
Regardless of your stance on GMO and fertilizers, compost is the only way to regenerate our soils to grow food in the world. All other methods feed the plant, not the soil. Without soil we have no food.
Compost efforts have been largely focused on residential homes. But what if we mobilized business, agriculture, restaurants and created this resource? Could we not ship that around the world to kick start the reversal of eroded soil, desertification, and low crop yields?
Sources who sell compost in Mexico tell me they are selling it to farmers for 100$ US/ton. The farmers there are reducing their dependence on fertilizers (which also depend on the extraction of potash and petroleum as well as the use of other chemicals which damage our planet). I also know of people managing large compost efforts in Lahore.
Creating compost is a viable business. It just needs to be properly marketed. I have not seen an enough international attention to this subject matter and to this wonderful blanket we can create to bless our planet's surface around the world.