New organic and water-rich fertilizer will help farmers in drought areas

Friday, October 28, 2016 by: Amy Goodrich
Tags: food waste, organic fertilizer, drought

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(NaturalNews) California, the top farm area of the U.S., is struggling under the pressure of a persistent drought. With no end in sight, farmers see their yields declining and are forced to drill more wells, pumping billions of gallons of water from the ground to irrigate their thirsty crops. Even before the drought, these groundwater reservoirs were already in a critically low state.

Furthermore, drought-stricken farmers are forced to use more chemical fertilizers, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, which in their turn worsen the ongoing drought effects.

And it doesn't stop there. The U.S. has a mind-boggling food waste problem. As reported by ReFED, an organization that raises awareness of the excessive food waste problem, the U.S. spends $218 billion a year on growing, processing, transporting and disposing of 63 million tons of food that never make it to our kitchen tables.

But there is hope. One team of entrepreneurs and investors may have found the solution to protecting our food chain, while addressing the issues of the ongoing drought and food wastage.

The new miracle: organic fertilizer

California Safe Soil, a California-based fresh food recycling business, recently teamed up with KDC Agribusiness, an investment group that mainly focuses on sustainable and environmental technologies. Together, they have developed a new technology which may solve the water crisis, over-fertilization and food wastage. The new fertilizer that they hope to bring to the market soon is both organic and water-rich.

Tech Crunch reported that the commercialization of this miracle fertilizer might solve three problems our world faces today. Firstly, it puts food waste to better use without filling up the landfills that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Secondly, it enables farmers to use an organic fertilizer that doesn't pollute the environment. Lastly, farmers have to use less water, which is a welcome solution for the drought-stricken areas of our nation.

This new organic and water-rich fertilizer is the result of years of hard work initiated by California Safe Soil's founder, Dan Morash.

"[Morash] saw the food waste to energy facilities and realized that food has a lot of water in it... So if you burn it, you don't create the most efficient source of energy," said Justin Kamine, the driving force behind KDC Ag.

From trash to food

Leading scientists and engineers from California Safe Soil (CSS) based their organic and sustainable farming technology on our body's digestive tract. It can process all types of fresh food waste, including dairy and meat, in just three hours.

The food waste, picked up from grocery stores across the country, is mixed with a unique set of enzymes that breaks down waste material. The result is a liquid byproduct that can be used as an organic, non-chemical fertilizer, called Harvest-to-Harvest (H2H).

At the moment, H2H is being utilized by farmers across the nation to fertilize about 15,000 acres of farmland. Because the fertilizer is a pasteurized (pathogen-free) liquid, farmers can easily apply it to their fields through their drip irrigation lines, which also minimizes the need to rotate crops, as soil nutrients can immediately be replenished after each crop cycle.

Third-party field trials have already shown that farmers using H2H are benefiting from an increase in crop yield per acre. Additionally, they're using 25 percent less water – which is good news for drought-stricken California – while reducing their need for the harmful nitrogen-rich products they used before.

Sources for this article include:

TechCrunch.com

NYTimes.com

ReFED.com

CalSafeSoil.com

KDCAg.com