There will be an industrial fertilizer shortage, its baked into the cake. It's not an accident, it's part of the current attack on all of civilization. Everyone in this Forum agrees that its not the best way to grow and that people should decentralize from, megafarms. That aside we have a problem incoming. The previously industrial farmed land will have productivity cut tremendously in 2 steps 1. loss of industrial fertilizer 2. poor soil health with too few inputs and too little time to regenerate. I want to help start a small scale Organic Fertilizer operation. I would like it to be a model and it will be open source, I hope people copy and improve. It needs to be scalable. so it cant depend on kitchen scraps or other small quantity stuff. The product needs to work as amendment so I want something more concentrated in goodness than a simple mulch. I will make it area specific. In my case I have a sea to access so I will include fish and bivalve and seaweed etc. I will start my scale at a target of 5 tons for the first year so that we know we are looking for a small industrial scale.. beyond a few guys with shovels and wheelbarrows.
My question is what would be the composition of an ideal fertilizer that can be produced without major scientific processes (meaning i would need years of study and costly equipment)? I can include basic science, such as biochars or kilning oyster shells or basic ferments. we need to do what NPK does as well as we can but want to supply more material for the soil to return to real soil... with living biome. I am sure someone(s) have solved this already, so I am happy to jus copy and adjust to my region. I am in Japan, I dont see a lot of large scale organic fertilizer ops. I am looking to offer a simple product that can do the job .. or a couple of options.. but it should be ready to go..
Using biochar is on the list. I would add that into the mix early so it gets composted for a few months. we have massive amounts of bamboo which can be harvested for free, possibly even at a small profit. I have read that things like oyster shells are more bio-available after being roasted a bit..
The way I imagine these operations working is that we would set up relationships 1rst with local municipality (try to receive leaf/grass/tree cuttings) work on local business for fish waste and oyster shell.. see if usable kelp is accessable or not.. So I can imagine that much of it.. but I am looking for how to get to the product part. what's gonna be the crucial elements and finally the recipe? Then we can come up with a simple industrial process.. for now I want a production that does not require starting a livestock business, though I am aware that that is a great direction for nutrients.
For now I imagine something like a bamboo/leaf compost with powdered biochar and possibly some powdered oyster shell as a base... but I am just going with things I have used and already know..
Thanks for discussion!