How to Start Composting on an Organic Farm

Sir, so this is a question that I think I have been saving for a while. Ever since I have started, I think farming is a big word, maybe gardening. This magic word called ‘compost’. I keep hearing it everywhere. Anything, any problem, why don't you add some compost to the soil? When I go to buy soil also, they ask, do you want some vermicompost? I have been buying it. I have been putting it. But to be really honest, do I know the science of it? Do I know why we do it? Not so much. So maybe today we can explain by starting with what is compost and how do you, and this is not a garden we are talking about. This is a farm that we are talking about. So how do we make compost? Is it easy? Is it something that farmers should be doing very easily? It is very simple. The moment you start farming, or you want to do agriculture, you are taking the soil nutrition away, nutrients in the soil away, and it is coming to our food. So we need to put something back into the soil. If you want to continue to farm in the same land. Earlier, what we used to do, in the early stages of farming, was slash and burn. You slash and you burn, you grow something and you move on. Then after maybe 2-3 years, you come back and you start growing in the same soil. That's exactly how the growing patterns were earlier. But then we became permanent settlers. Then land got allocated for growing our food. So then we had to engineer how to grow the food. So every time we grow a crop, if we grow the same crop there again and continue to grow a crop, crops won't come. Why they don't come is, basically crops depend on nutrition in soil. Correct. So where does this nutrition come from is the question. For example, crops need nitrogen. Where is the nitrogen? Nitrogen is in the air. I am just taking nitrogen as an example. But somebody needs to go there and fix it. One way of substituting that part, the lack of nitrogen, is to grow a cover crop and make that cover crop fix the nitrogen. Then you plough it back. Then you grow a crop there. A nitrogen-intensive crop we can grow. Like, maize requires a lot of nitrogen. Paddy needs a lot of nitrogen. Ragi needs a lot of nitrogen. Because they are all monocots. That is one way of fixing it. Sorry. By fixing, you mean that these plants take the nitrogen in the air- and put it back into the soil- through a process that is within the plants. For example, if you take dhaincha as an example of a cover crop. Dhaincha has great capability to harvest nitrogen in the air, and put it in the soil through nodules. So once you put it back, along with nitrogen, soil organic carbon also goes up because you need to integrate the plant back into the soil. While that is the mandatory part of farming, growing cover crops and giving it back, we also need something additional. That is manure. The manure can be chemical manure, or it can be organic manure. So let's keep the chemical side aside. What is organic manure? How do you make organic manure? For example, NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) is very important for soil. How do you get NPK into the soil? Soil organic carbon is important for the soil. How do you get it? So one beautiful mechanism of making that kind of manure is using cow dung. Now, we can see here, this heap has been laid out. Now, if you sit here, this is pulverised agricultural waste. All of this is pulverised agricultural waste. You see here. But if you go a little bit down, you can see the cow dung. This is like one layer of- -one layer of cow dung, then agricultural waste, then you are laying down cow dung again. Then you put agricultural waste on top of it. Then you make a heap like that. You can see there. That’s a bigger heap. So this is done? Yeah. That is getting digested now. Now, once you do this and give a little bit of moisture, the bacterial activity starts. Bacterial activity can take this temperature to 65-70 degrees internally. Then the bacteria digests it and turns into manure like that. That kind of a pile up. It requires a couple of turnings. Then it becomes manure. That manure is a combination of cow dung, tree trimmings, agricultural waste, and anything you can bring. In the far end, you can see there, lot of pulverised agricultural waste is there. And wherever we believe that a little bit of iron is required, we also add a little bit of red soil. You can see there. In this process itself, sir? Yeah, in this process itself you can do it. So that also we can do, a little bit, maybe one portion. So the combination is, for one katori (cup) by volume of cow dung, you give five cups of agricultural pulverised waste, by volume. And you keep building the heap. This is called the Indore method of composting. This has been beautifully documented in ‘An Agricultural Testament’ by Albert Howard. This is the science of making manure. If conditions are good, you can make it in 45 days. But if conditions are not so good, it can go up to 90-120 days. So that's how it is. By conditions you mean moisture, temperature, and what are the other factors? Yes. For example, in the rainy season, if it is protected, we can make things quicker. Because there will be a little bit more moisture in the air. And in the dry season, it will be a little bit difficult. We need to sprinkle a lot more water. But you have to always keep it moist, not drench it with water. It should be moist. Maybe around 50 to 60% moisture. If you maintain that, bacterial activity is encouraged. Bacteria eats all of it and digests it, and it becomes manure. Sir, my bigger question is now we need N, P, and K, right? For successful farming. Does compost offer all three? I mean I would assume cow dung is more on the nitrogen side. Maybe because it is an excreta. And here we have agricultural remains, which will be maybe carbon-heavy. So how do we get the P and K also? Surprisingly, cow dung is nitrogen deficient. That is the reason we need plants like Gliricidia which we have seen in the bunds. We have grown that. You chaff that and add it to substitute nitrogen. P and K is also there in cow dung, and also in tree trimmings. But if all these tree trimmings, if they are not in plant-available form, If you go and put it to the plant- no use- Plant can't take it. It can't take that NPK. So we need cow dung as a medium to get the bacterial action going, act on this, and break it down in such a way that it becomes available to plants. So, why chemical manures are so popular is, anything you take and just throw it, It is plant-available. No bacterial action required. Can you believe it? Nature puts in bacterial action to break down anything which is available in nature to make it plant-available so that plants can take it and give food for us. Of course, we have also discussed how a lot of fungi, which are there in the soil, how they collaborate and exchange nutrition. Algae networks, fungi networks, there are a lot of things happening in the biome. But what is important is, we need to really understand that this is happening naturally. Cow dung is a medium. Of course, cow dung has some NPK characteristics. But it is nitrogen deficient. We need to put tree trimmings and agricultural waste. And allow bacteria to act on it. Make it in a plant-available form. How does a forest do it? In forests, I know that tree leaves fall. How does this process work where maybe there is no cow dung there to act as a medium. So how does a normal ecosystem thrive? That is a wonderful question. The leaves which are falling on the surface carry all the nutrition. Can you believe it? If you go and actually test soil samples in the Amazon rainforest for NPK content actually, soil doesn't have it. It is on the leaves. Okay. So bacterial action breaks it down. Makes it plant-available. That's it. As simple as that. There is no other means, no other medium. So it is basically, cow dung helps it to make it faster? Accelerate it. And cow dung also has got nutrition, some amount of nutrition. But cow dung accelerates the bacterial growth. So sir, I think in the industry, it is available, something called a cow dung manure. Is that this or is that cow dung in a dried form? There is a lot of misunderstanding of cow dung manure. Cow dung in itself is not a good manure. Cow dung in combination with agricultural waste, tree trimmings, pulverised organic waste, all of it mixed together, if you make a manure like that, that is a wonderful compost. So that's how the compost is. And sir, again, another thing that you hear is leaf compost, vermicompost. What are all these? It is the same, okay. For example, vermicompost is another way where earthworms can eat all this organic matter. Yeah. Their excreta is vermicompost. Same action has happened. It has digested all the tree trimmings and everything. And its excreta comes out. And so therefore, that excreta is called vermicompost. Leaf compost is the same thing. You take the leaf. Put it through bacterial action. And whatever decomposition, decomposition acts happen by bacterial action. So then what is available is a leaf compost. And how, can those things also be done at a farm level? It can be done if leaves are available. So they can replace these tree trimmings. Okay. Any biomass can be a very good source of manure making, clubbed along with cow dung. Got it, sir. So I am sure there are tendencies to maybe fail as well. Yes. So are there any basic standards like, can you look at this and understand okay, this is doing well? Or is there smell or any of those criteria that we have? For example, this heap, maybe we started making it around two months back. Sure. Now, on the top, they have put this one. If you actually dig deeper, just put your hand, just put there. Oh it's very hot. Can you believe it? Just put it a little bit deeper. Yeah. This must be- bacterial action- significantly hotter than- it is around 60 degrees, 60 degree temperature. You will not know. But that's how it is. So can that be used as a criteria that this is successful? Yes. Bacterial action is there. Heat generation indicates bacterial action is there. So we need to sprinkle a little bit of water. Daily, they sprinkle some water to keep moisture at 60 degrees. That's how these compost heaps are built. This is the Indore method. Once this is done, after temperature falls to 40 degrees, from 60 degrees, it falls to 40 degrees. Once it falls to 40 degrees, it has to be turned. The heap needs to be turned so that the undecomposed portion actually goes into bottom. Then once this is done, the manure becomes like this. This is the final manure you see here. This is in an almost plant-absorbable format with a lot of soil organic carbon. There is huge soil organic carbon. You can see here. This actually looks like- yeah, you can smell it. When you smell it, you don't smell dung. It smells like soil. It smells like petrichor. That's how it develops a bacterial action. That's how it is. Manure never smells. Can you believe it? Manure we actually scorn off. It is not. Well-made manure has amazing petrichor smell. It smells great, actually. So a lot of people don't really understand. So you don't feel bad about touching manure. So it's a petrichor. So that's how you break it down. So cow dung, which actually, if you hold in hand, actually smells. And if you integrate this one like this with tree trimmings and make good manure, it doesn't smell. So what happens if we add cow dung directly to plants? So it is not in a plant-absorbable format. Okay. We need to, bacterial action is still required. Sometimes that will happen or- Yeah, see there are two ways of telling. <i>“Kalitha gobbara, koletha gobbara”</i> <i>means what you see is a Kalitha.</i> It is smelling good. <i>Koletha means it smells bad.</i> If you pool just cow dung and leave it, it actually smells bad. Extremely bad. Sir, is there a, I mean, this is clearly an aerobic method of composting. Is there another anaerobic way where we can still, you know. A lot of ways in which anaerobic method also exists. Very similar process. But there, anaerobic bacteria acts. Simple anaerobic method of composting is a methane gas pit. If you leave cow dung in the slurry, and it goes into a methane gas pit, methane gas production happens, there is anaerobic bacteria acting on it. Then you take the slurry and feed it to the plants. It is perfectly fine. So what you saw there, methane gas- Yes, I can see that- slurry coming out. This is the example of a pulverised, chaffed pulverised waste, agricultural waste. This is just kept. It is kept so that they can add. Every day, what they can do is, they put 10 cups of cow dung -and ten into five- 50 cups of this. So therefore, they keep building the heaps. That's what they do in terms of building the heap. Therefore, it should be always ready. Cow dung comes daily. Fresh dung from a cow unit. And you put it. It is actually very straightforward, if you see, rather than dumping it in some open area. They just go and dump the cow dung rather than just dump it structurally. In a heap manner, you dump it. You can make amazing manures. Actually, a lot of people think it needs a lot of labour. But nothing like that. It is not required. Rather than dumping somewhere, dump it in a proper manner, organised manner in an Indore method. Making compost is very, very easy. Got it. There is another method called NADEP method. That follows an aerobic method of compost making. That is also very simple. We have to make a lot of pits and keep dumping all the agricultural waste, with a little bit of cow dung. Keep building and it builds. So basically there are multiple ways to create compost. And so finally, what happens to this now? Do we just directly apply it to the plants? So now for example, in Akshayakalpa, the thumb rule we are following is for every acre of land, lands are so degraded. Every year, we are adding 15 tons of manure prepared like this. 15 tons. For example, if you have, let’s say, 30 acres, you have to make 450 tons of manure like this. So one tractor load is three tons. So how much do you need? 110-120 tractor loads of manure you need. Over a period of time, you can reduce it to 2 to 3 tons, to 5 tons. Over a period of time, per acre, you can reduce. But in the initial stages, you need that or else, you don't get yields. Then you will blame it saying, organic farming failed. Over a period of time, you have abused the land left, right, top, bottom. And then suddenly, you say, organic failed. Why organic farming will fail if you manure it properly? Manure is the key to make farming successful, irrespective of organic or otherwise. Even people who are using chemical manures, if they use a little bit of an organic manure like this, actually, yields, they can get amazing yields. They can't even imagine. So therefore, soil organic carbon keeps going up. There is bacterial action. And also, of course, direct plant-available manure they are giving as chemicals. Or they are giving NPK 17:17:17. Or they are giving nitrogen. So that's how it is. So what is stopping farmers from doing this? Is it a lack of availability of, say, cow dung or agricultural waste? Is it labour? What do you think is stopping them? Basically, what happened in farming is, the fact is, slowly, we removed animal integration in farming. The moment you stopped animal integration in farming, so all the waste which is there in the farm, which is getting converted into manure, it is not there anymore. And in all the villages, we buy milk from outside. Every home had cows, every home had bovine population with them, a cow or a buffalo or a sheep or a goat or whatever. But see, this is how it is now. And when we apply it, do we need to plough or till or anything, or is it just applying directly? It depends upon, if you are applying for horticulture okay, you make a little bit of a pathway and put it. Maybe 10 kgs, 20 kgs, you put it. And cover it with a little bit of soil. It's fine. If we are applying for a, let me say, paddy field, you broadcast it. Then you do tilling. Or if we are applying for a ragi field, same thing, broadcast it and till it. We have seen in our Ragi Masterclass, we put the cover crop, put it back. Then we put a little bit of cow manure. And we ploughed it back. So very similar. Very simple techniques. And sir, with these agricultural inputs, is there a plant that you can't put or can we cut the weeds around us? Anything and everything works. There is nothing like you can’t, other than thorny bushes. Maybe it will hurt you. Yeah, yeah. While handling it, you keep that one aside. Any plant, any agricultural waste, any tree trimmings, anything on the roadside you have cut and thrown, you can put it. So ultimately, this is about understanding your land. Like here, you felt there is a need for a little bit of iron because in this geographical situation, new field. So it is farmers understanding their land and adapting. Very simple. So this is not a red soil. Iron is a little bit less. So we just augment that one little bit. But I am very confident, in ten years, this farm will be truly regenerative. It will regenerate itself. Amount of tree plantations we have done in the periphery. In the next 2 or 3 years, they will start blooming and that mulch starts coming in. But you still need to make your manure. But we can make it truly regenerative. Great. I think maybe we can visit the farm from here. Yeah, yeah. This is a very very 50,000 feet level science. Extremely bad. You understand, no? Because lack of bacterial action creates a lot of methane. And that actually creates a lot of issues.