Waste Transformation Closed Loop Farming by Dr. Paul Olivier (Empowering the Poor through Waste Transformation)

What a meaty read! No fluff, straight up information and lots of it with lots of links which I still need to go through in round 2. I thought it was a Black Soldier Fly Summary or at least that is what I saved it as. Contents summarise it well so the notes are below it. You can click here for you own copy!

From the first page:
Transforming Biodegradable Waste, Integrating Plant and Animal Systems, Deindustrializing Agriculture, Reducing Carbon Emissions, Sequestering Carbon, Decommodifying Food and Restoring Biodiversity

Abstract
This essay has seven major themes, as its subtitle indicates. Small farmers transform biodegradable waste at the highest possible levels. They closely integrate multiple plant and multiple animal systems. And they deindustrialize the production of food. These three strategies allow them to play a major role in reducing carbon emissions and in sequestering carbon. Furthermore, small farmers participate in social enterprises that share and integrate waste resources and waste technologies, that provide education and training, and that take care of all aspects of selling to consumers. With all of these elements in place, small farmers are able to decommodify the sale of food. Food is not just another commodity to be traded in the global marketplace. The market value of food should never be allowed to override broader issues relating to food safety, food security, food justice, food sovereignty, income inequality, the health of the environment and the biodiversity of our planet.

Contents
Introduction
The Four Levels of Waste Transformation
Examples of Type 1 Waste
Lactic Acid Fermentation and Probiotics
Studies on the Benefits of Fermentation
Common Mistakes in Waste Transformation and in Food and Fuel Production
Food Waste
Crustacean Waste and Feather Waste
Correctly Transforming Type 2 Waste
Biodigesters – A Serious Health and Environmental Hazard
Concrete Floors – Barbaric and Inhumane
Thermophilic and Mesophilic Composting at Level 3
Top-lit Updraft Gasifiers at Level 4
Pelletized Biomass
Torrefied Biomass
Gasifier Fuel Sources
Combined Heat and Biochar
Roasting Coffee and Making Biochar
Spent Coffee Grounds and Biochar as a Medium for Growing Mushrooms
Biochar at Level 1
Biochar at Level 2
Biochar at Level 3
Biochar in Soil
Soil Ecosystems and AM Fungi
A Cascade from Cow to Pig to Chicken to Fish
Trophic Level Upgrades
Black Soldier Fly Larvae
Larvae and Red Worms – an Outstanding Partnership
The Larval Bioconversion of Pig Manure
BSF Lipids, Lauric Acid and Monolaurin
The Biopod and Other Larval Rearing Devices
The Deindustrialization of Black Soldier Fly Technology
What Aquaponics Teaches Us
Raising Livestock Outdoors – Highly Problematic
Fully Exploiting the Value of Livestock Waste
Pollution from Livestock Waste and Chemical Fertilizers
Chemical Fertilizers are Poisons
Greenhouse Gases from Chemical Fertilizers and Animal Agriculture
Conventional Farming and Air Pollution
Conventional Farming and Soil Erosion
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sequestering Carbon
The Perennial Peanut
The Perennial Peanut and Earthworms
Moringa oleifera
No Crops without Animals and No Animals without Crops
Transforming Pine Forest Debris
Transforming Rice Straw
The System of Rice Intensification
Arsenic Uptake in Rice
A System of Rice and Animal Intensification
Coffee Pulp, Cashew Apples, Banana Biomass and Passion Fruit Peel
The Conventional Production of Animal Source Food is Deeply Flawed
Rainforests and Native Grassland Destroyed
The Restoration of Degraded Pastureland
The Many Advantages of Raising Cattle Indoors
Problems with Fences
Horseflies, Deerflies, Horn Flies, Stable Flies, Black Flies, Lice, Mites and Ticks
Extremes of Hot and Cold
Drawing a Clear Line between Domesticated and Wild
“Setting Aside Half the World for the Rest of Life”
The Ecological Devastation Caused By Domesticated Grazing Animals
Meat-Eating Hominins
“The Mythological Hero Called the Cowboy”
Raising Cows Indoors
Pigs Raised the Conventional Way: Savage, Inhumane and Barbaric
Concrete Floors, Bioaerosols and Biofilm
The Power of Probiotic Cleaning
Superbugs Resistant to All Antibiotics
Antibiotic Abuse in Vietnam
Ractopamine Used in Vietnam
The High Mortality of Piglets
Clostridium difficile in Pigs
Post-Weaning Diarrhea in Pigs
The Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus
The Barbarity of Farrowing Crates
A Spacious Maternity Pen for Sow and Piglets
Nest-Building by Sows and Piglets
The Barbarity of Gestation Crates
Cruelty is the Norm in Raising Farm Animals
Blue Ear and Swine Flu
Most Vietnamese Pork is Unfit for Human Consumption
Raising Pigs Outdoors is Not a Solution
A Third Way
Pigs Eat Bedding
Piggy Packets
Constructing Pig Pens
Bonding with Pigs
Fake Feed and Fertilizer in Vietnam
The Pork Trade in Vietnam
Change Desperately Needed in Raising Chickens
Arsenic in Chicken Feed
Poultry Infested with MRSA, E coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter
An Unconventional Way of Raising Chickens
Aquaculture in Vietnam
Cowboys of the Sea
Trawling, Trolling, Longline Fishing and Scallop Dredging
Cyanide and Dynamite Used to Catch Fish in Vietnam
Two Totally Disgusting Chinese Soups: Shark Fin and Totoaba Bladder
Oceans Pillaged and Destroyed
Sperm Whales as Agents of Iron Fertilization
A Ban on Commercial Ocean Fishing
Fresh and Salt Water Aquaponics
Once again, a Clear Line between Domesticated and Wild
Giving and Taking in Balance = Sustainable Agriculture
The Economics of Small-scale Farming in Vietnam
Food is a Lot More than the Nutrition It Provides
The Transformation of Human Waste
The Danger of Sewage Plants
The Danger of Septic Tanks
A Disgusting Cocktail of Human and Rat Waste
Human Waste to Biodigesters – A Very Bad Idea
“An Exploding Germ Launching Event”
A Dry Toilet
An Odorless, Sanitary, Portable Toilet
The Spread of Prions to Humans and Wildlife
A Special Toilet for Hospitals and Nursing Homes
A Squatty Potty and Anal Cleansing
Communal Toilets in Poor Villages Not Needed
Processing Human Urine
Struvite Precipitation
Duckweed and Duckweed Ponds
Processing Human Urine at the Household Level
Mesophilically Transformed Urine
Fermenting Human Urine
The Production of Microbial Protein
Urine and Straw as Animal Feed
Fermentation of Human Feces Together with Biochar
The Mesophilic and Thermophilic Composting of Human Feces
Gasifier and Dry Toilet
Sanitary Landfills Do Not Exist
Dumping Garbage in Lakes, Streams, Rivers and Oceans
The Backyard and Landfill Burning of Waste
Should Vietnam Incinerate its waste?
From Dangerously Managing to Profitably Transforming Household Waste
The Mesophilic Bin
Indoor Composting
Distinguishing Biodegradable from Non-biodegradable
Never Working with Commingled Waste
The Role of Scavengers
Decree 59/2007/ND-CP
Not Mixing is a Lot Easier than Separating
Dense Medium Separation
The Transformation of Bone Waste
Compressed Stabilized Earth Construction
Climate Change
State Governance of Pesticide Use in Vietnam
Food Produced Locally – the Best Thing We’ve Got in Cleaning up Waste
Farmers Everywhere, Especially in and around Cities
The Transformation of Biodegradable Waste as the Centerpiece of Food Production
Food Justice and Small Farmers
“The Evils of Farming”
The Decommodification of Food and Coffee
“The Next Phase of Colonialism”
Our Planet Needs Small Farmers
And Small Farmers Need Social Enterprises
Treating Nature with the Awe, Respect and Reverence She Deserves

Notes:
Larvae and Red Worms – an Outstanding Partnership
It is important to view the co-working of larvae and worms as a single process. Larvae and worms can be raised at the same time in two pods next to one another, with larvae in one pod and worms in the other. As larvae eat fresh manure added to the larval pod each day or perhaps twice daily, only mature prepupal larvae self-harvest into a bucket. Immature larvae stay in place where they belong and continue to eat. Mature prepupal larvae have higher protein, fat, dry matter and chitin contents than immature larvae.

When the larval pod fills up with larval residue, larvae in several stages of growth are removed from the surface of the pod and placed in an empty pod ready to receive more fresh manure. After the larvae are removed, worms are put in their place and begin eating larval residue from top to bottom. Each day vermicompost is removed from off the surface of the worm pod, so that the worms stay well aerated as they eat their way down. As worms continue to eat, and as vermicompost is continually removed, in the end only worms remain at the bottom of the pod. They are easily scooped up and harvested. Vermicompost, especially vermicompost formed in the presence of biochar, is the finest fertilizer that exists. The two vermicomposts, from bedding and from manure, can be blended.

Pod 1 with larvae and pod 2 with worms is followed by pod 2 with larvae and pod 1 with worms. Switching back and forth between the two pods goes on and on. Larval residue does not have to be scooped out of larval bins and transported to an off-site vermicomposting facility.

Waste
Even human waste and biodegradable household waste must be a part of endless cycles of waste transformation. The transformation of these two types of waste could alleviate a lot of the hunger and malnutrition in countries throughout the world.

On a yearly basis a human produces roughly 500 liters of urine and 50 liters of feces. These two products contain enough nutrients to grow most of the plants that a human needs as food. But instead of utilizing these 550 liters as a resource, most people in the developed world mix them with about 15,000 liters of water, and all is flushed down the toilet. This end-of-pipe solution recycles nothing. It takes valuable resources and transforms them into pollutants.

In the developed world, human waste is mixed with drinking-quality water, and at times, this foul water is converted back into drinking water. The environmental and financial cost of doing this is huge.

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Our Planet Needs Small Farmers:
1. each with a relatively small plot of land,
2. who transform biodegradable waste at four levels,
3. who integrate multiple plant systems with multiple poultry/animal/fish systems,
4. who transform into feed: waste biomass and co-cropped biomass together with biochar,
5. who feed fresh animal and poultry feces to black soldier fly larvae, thereby producing mature prepupal larvae of a high protein, fat and dry matter content,
6. who feed larval residue to red worms, thereby producing microbially rich feed and vermichar,
7. who make mesophilic and thermophilic compost together with biochar,
8. who raise poultry and animals indoors on fine biomass/biochar bedding sprayed each day with a probiotic liquid (no smell, no flies and no disease),
9. who spray poultry and animals at least twice a week with essential oil compounds,
10. who accord comfort and dignity to all that they raise,
11. who use spent animal bedding as fertilizer (mesophically immobilized urine),
12. who operate gasifiers for the simultaneous production of high-grade heat and biochar,
13. who employ bio-pesticides, bio-herbicides, bio-fungicides, insect traps, natural predators and other safe strategies of pest and weed control,
14. who transform human waste and safely return it to agriculture,
15. who never use antibiotics, growth hormones, chemical fertilizers, agro-chemicals or GMO’s,
16. who never use feed derived from industrial fish or human food,
17. who never use fuel derived from animal waste, fossil fuels or human food,
18. who take nothing from prairies, pastures, forests or oceans, thereby reserving most of our planet for the rest of life,
19. who play a major role in the restoration of biodiversity on land and at sea,
20. who play a major role in combatting land subsidence, rising sea levels and climate change,
21. who play a major role in reducing carbon emissions and in sequestering carbon,
22. who, in developing countries, make from $1,000 to $3,000/month,
23. who, in developed countries, make from $6,000 to $12,000/month,
24. whose children do not have to abandon their farms and migrate to cities to work as slaves for the rich and global elite,
25. who also operate near and within urban areas so as to minimize the transport of food and waste,
26. who participate in social enterprises that unify, enable, empower and protect.

And Small Farmers Need Social Enterprises
1. that educate and train,
2. that provide chopping machines and packaging vessels for feed fermentation,
3. that provide, if necessary, larval and worm hatcheries,
4. that provide biopods and other devices for the grow out of black soldier fly larvae,
5. that provide worm beds for the grow out of worms,
6. that provide thermophilic and mesophilic composting vessels,
7. that provide gasifiers,
8. that provide grinders and pellet machines to prepare fuel for gasifiers,
9. that provide no-mix dry toilets as well as the technology to safely transform urine and feces,
10. that breed animals and supply weaned offspring for grow out,
11. that operate hatcheries for the grow out of fowl,
12. that operate hatcheries and nurseries for the grow out of shellfish, crustaceans and fish,
13. that provide poultry and animal pens,
14. that provide simple aquaponic systems, as in iAVs,
15. that provide the equipment needed for drying, parching, roasting, distilling and so forth,
16. that slaughter, cut, prepare or package: fruit, vegetables, meat or fish,
17. that provide refrigeration, cold storage and warehouse facilities,
18. that provide vehicles for the delivery of food and the collection of waste,
19. that by-pass loan sharks, local traders and international traders,
20. that sell as high up the value chain as possible,
21. that sell at affordable prices and assure food justice for everyone,
22. that render to small farmers at least 80% of the retail profit earned,
23. that guarantee the safety of food,
24. that provide safe drinking water to its members,
25. that provide life insurance and health insurance to its members,
26. that deindustrialize agriculture and decommodify food products,
27. that have nothing to do with stock or commodity markets,
28. that assure sustainability along with the highest levels of productivity within agriculture,
29. that localize the production of food, thereby assuring food security and food sovereignty,
30. that provide, if necessary, alternative housing (e.g. compressed earth block houses),
31. that provide life and health insurance,
32. that are run primarily by women,
33. that operate in conjunction with other social enterprises to lower costs and increase profitability,
34. that are fully engaged in the struggle for economic and environmental justice,
35. that are determined to put an end to the twin scourge of poverty and pollution.

Climate Change
With small-scale, sustainable agriculture, not only do we have the best way to grow or raise safer, better and more abundant food, but we also have an excellent way to mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change. As noted previously, some scientists estimate that in as little as 10 years, we could reduce atmospheric carbon levels down to 350 ppm simply by abandoning conventional agricultural practices that abuse the soil.

For Nature says to every inhabitant of planet Earth:
If you want food, give me your waste. Give me your waste in a form that I can use. If you do not correctly return your waste to me, you do not have the right to eat.

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