Integrated Farming: Difference between revisions

Biowaste feedstocks are first used to generate energy through the stimulation of anaerobic bacteria, in an airtight reactor which can then be used for electrical generation and heating.

Integrated Farming using bio-solids from feedlots and feed barns as a feedstock for bioreactors that they produce methane that can power fuel cells and produce electricity and heat for the village. Algae and other microorganisms then feast on the remaining effluent in the fishpond or fish tanks, which the fish then eat thus preventing eutrophication and the degradation of the living machine system. Inflow effluent becomes nutrient loaded pond water, which then irrigates crops in a variety of methods from berm agriculture to aquaponics.

Restorative Economics

The Integrated Biomass System is almost completely self-reliant, eliminating the need for many expensive inputs typically associated with conventional agricultural production such as feed and fertilizer. Lower overhead costs for small farmers in developing countries helps to make farming more viable in these regions. Existing economic models link development with the idea of disposing of biomass as waste in landfills. The undervaluing of biomass is related to the patterns that emerge are those in which marginalized rural regions are being rapidly depleted of their natural resources to perpetuate this very unsustainable cycle of treating biomass as trash. It is not only an extractive economy but also an exploitative one that is rapidly deflating the value of natural and human systems in these regions to fuel unsustainable economic growth.

What makes this business plan compelling is that it will capitalize on the tendency of society to undervalue waste byproducts that result from unsustainable agricultural, industrial and residential activities in conventional society and convert what society sees as a waste into value-added products—within an integrated and highly productive agricultural system. Our goal is not simply to create a sustainable economy but a restorative one that regenerates and rebuilds the integrity of ecological systems.

Integrated biowaste processing systems mimic nature, addressing problems of conventional wastewater treatment facilities in a way that is more ecologically as well economically sound. This makes them a key set of disruptive technologies for the development of decentralized village based sustainable economy.

A major culprit behind global warming is methane (biogas) gas. Anaerobic digesters are a low cost solution to mitigate global warming by reducing methane emissions into the atmosphere.

Biogas can function as fuel creating power in any number of configurations from providing energy with relatively low-tech devices such as boilers internal combustion engines to more complex and state of the art micro turbines and solid oxide or molten carbonate fuel cells. The waste not digested by the Anerobic bacteria and made into biogas becomes either liquid fertilizer or compost growing a variety of crops.

A community with an IF or similar sustainable technology could receive money for the scale of carbon and methane sequestration. Gaviotas, an ecovillage in Columbia, received 2 million dollars from a Japanese fund and this money helped them to plant 36,000 acres of pine trees, but from the forest sprang a business exporting colofonia, which is needed to make natural paints, in Columbia.

Considering the Role of Information Technologies Like farming in general, more advanced stages of Integrated Farming can see additional benefits through the application of Information Technologies to enable more effective optimization of the feedback loops within the system (for more read about considering the role of Holistic ICT in Sustainable Development/Holistic ICT for EcoLiving).

Background

In natural ecosystems, soil over thousands of years old builds up as a mixture of biomass accumulated through the life and death of countless organisms, and also the breakdown of geological features in what is called geomorphology. Current industrial practices were empowered by Normal Borlaug's effort while at the Rockerfeller Foundation in the 50s to put forward a "Green Revolution. The Green Revolution led to the rapid industrialization of agriculture. This included the injection of industrial chemicals for fertilizers and pesticides, homogenized see varieties and mass production, mechanized farming practices. These produces while providing dramatic short term gains in production, are over the long term rapidly degrading those natural systems that build soil. At the same time, we are basically mining the agricultural lands of their valuable soils to keep unsustainable levels of production at industrial monoculture farms.

Often though the debate is quite narrow in that ecologists and industrialist debate about whether or not organic farming can sustain current production levels.

What is still ignored in the mainstream (on both extremes of the agricultural debate) is that a paradigm shift is emerging that is moving humanity (whether it likes or not) away from conventional land based food production systems that require large amounts of land and heavy machinery in order for the farms to be economically viable.

• As an alternative to these a series of Bio-intensive (permaculture, growbiointensive, agroecology, biodynamic) agriculture practiced some of which are compost and land based but optimize the systems using organic, poly-culture food growing practices.
• Other systems use digesters to process animal, plant and agro-industrial waste and then use hydraulic principles of water to optimize the growing process such as aquaponics and pond-based agricultural systems.

These systems are more productive than conventional agriculture because they are designed to complement and synergize naturally occurring processes.

They do this by:

• Maximizing the uptake/sequestration of gases (mainly carbon and nitrogen) from the atmosphere.
• Creating synergistic loops within the growing ecosystem that lead to a permaculture type design that modifies natural ecosystems but augments (rather than obliterating them as industrialized agriculture does) making selective changes that optimize production.
• Adding potent fertilizers such as mineralized water and compost teas to maximize beneficial microbial that plants need to grow rapidly.

This then creates a surplus that allows for the production of agricultural goods. So long as an ecosystem is fully functional, a certain amount of biomass can be exported from that ecosystem to another part of the world without depleting or degrading the vitality of the ecosystem. So long as we do not exceed that threshold, we exist in a state of sustainability.

As part of this movement, environmental engineer Professor George Chan of Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI) helped pioneer the development of a remarkable and exciting approach to agriculture called Integrated Farming. Prof. Chan spent several years studying the ancient integrated oriental agricultural systems that are still place in many low-lying areas of China and Vietnam where they are most ideally suited. The Chinese have long understood that the proper arrangement of organisms can make waste into food without little need for complex machinery.

The names have changed over the year Night Soil, Integrated Farming, Integrated Biomass Systems and now Integrated Farming & Waste Management Systems, but the underlying principle is the same. These more integrated approaches to farming, incorporate appropriate technologies such as digesters that increase the production and utilization of biomass while only marginally increasing energy and resource inputs for infrastructure and construction.

The Longju Sustainable Village (PDF) plan was the result of a brainstorming session between leading American sustainability think tanks including the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems and the Rocky Mountain Institute. This plan for South China complements the ZERI approach, promoting an integrated sustainable village model.

Abstract

Keywords:

Development needs

Costs

Materials

See this example of a cost table for more on tables.

Possible alternative materials

Tools

Skills needed

Estimated time of construction

Specifications

Technical specifications including a schematic (CAD, pictures of the device).

Here is some help uploading files.

Construction instructions

Next steps

Possible alternatives devices

Location

ZERI has been active in promoting these alternative technologies to the developing world. There are now numerous Anaerobic digesters are ideal for rural villages in the developing world. IBS systems functioning in countries throughout the world, such as Namibia, Benin, China, Vietnam, Sweden and Fuji.

References

See Help:Footnotes for more.

Categories

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