2. Top 10 Reasons
WHY DIY COMPOST
IS SO MUCH BETTER
THAN MIRACLE-GRO!

3. Compost encourages
beneficial microbes to get
it on instead of squashing
their hopes and dreams.

4. Hello three-eyed fish!
Compost reduces
surface runoff while
synthetic fertilizers
are highly soluble,
causing runoff
pollution.

5. You can’t trust bagged soil
from a billionaire
seed company!
(Miracle-Gro = O.M. Scott = Roundup = Monsanto)

6. Let’s inject our
food with more
ammonium
phosphate,
chemicals,
potash (excess
chlorine)…Yum!

7. Synthetic fertilizer is
like a one night stand!
It feeds off short-
term, voluptuous
growth and then
leaves your plants
feeling used and
neglected.

8. Instead of contaminating
the soil, compost actually
neutralizes toxins such as
pesticides, salts,
and heavy metals.

9. “Caution! You should avoid
contact with skin or eyes
when using Miracle-Gro.”
Guess what folks?
Your pets, kids, and Uncle
Rico can play in the
compost all they want to.

10. Compost improves
plant health and
suppresses disease
while synthetic
fertilizers burn plant
roots leaving them
vulnerable to pest
and disease.
Too Much isn’t Always a
Good Thing…

11. Why do we need
Miracle-Gro in
the first place?
Compost
reduces
fertilizer
requirements
altogether!

12. It’s silly to pay for soil
when making your own
compost is free!

13. + =It’s as
EASY as...
Composting 101

14. Nitrogen Material
“wet” or “green”
Provides protein to the microorganisms
 Fruit scraps
 Veggie scraps
 Grass clippings
 Manure
 Coffee & Tea
 Eggshells
 Spent Houseplants, Garden Cuttings,
Bouquets…*
 Hair (Dog & Human)
 Vacuum Dust
 And yes, Human Urine…
* non-diseased and bug free plants

15. Carbon Material
“dry” or “brown”
Energy/food to the microorganisms
 Dead Leaves
 Hay and Straw
 Sawdust / Woodchips
 Dryer Lint
 Napkins & paper towels
 Waxed paper - milk cartons
 Pizza Boxes
 Newspaper & Paperboard (shredded)
 Corn Cobs (takes awhile to compost)
 Pine Needles (too much slows down pile)

16. Neutral Ingredients
 Beverages – flat soft drinks (mix it in
so sugar doesn’t attract flies)
 Wood Ashes (sprinkle small amounts)
 Gray Water without detergent or
bleach
 Use water from washing veggies
 Catch water running to heat up shower

17. Carbon : Nitrogen
Nitrogen Volumes Control Compost Temperature
 LOW Nitrogen = pile will NOt HEAT up.
 HIGH Nitrogen = the compost may become
TOO HOT, killing the compost microorganisms,
or it may go anaerobic, resulting in a foul-smelling mess.
Goal should be
C:N
30:1

18. Too Much Carbon:
When C:N > than 30
•Decomposition is Slow
•Nitrogen is used up
•To complete decomposition process - MO’s will
draw from stored N and soil N to make use of
available C
•This is “robbing” the soil of N and delays
availability of N as a fertilizer for plants

19. Too Much Nitrogen:
When C:N < than 30
•MO’s make full use of available C
•Get rid of excess N as ammonia gas
•Unhealthy release of ammonia into atmosphere –
creates a terrible smell
•Produces a loss of N from the compost pile
•Keep to a minimum if at all

20. Basic Steps
 Add “Green Stuff” = Nitrogen
 Add “Brown Stuff” = Carbon
 Mix
 Check Moisture
 Harvest!

21.  1920s – over plowed, over planted, and over grazed
 1930s – drought, heat, and wind and low agricultural prices
 Cause – drought and unwise farming practices!
 By 1934 – 100 million acres of farmland lost all or most of
top soil to winds and drought
 Soil conservation legislation – gov’t paid farmer to let land
idle (fallow)
 POLICY POLICE - Encouraged farmers to plant certain
crops, rotate, renew soil nutrients, prevent erosion…

25.  Hard times in the Great Plains – drought and depression
 Same time – better technology forced farmers to buy:
 Tractors
 New hybrid seeds
 Chemicals – synthetic pesticides
 Irrigation systems
 More land
 Farms got bigger = fewer farmers
on the same amount of land
 Trend has continue until today!

26.  War ended the Great Depression – Federal spending grew
the factories
 Greater demand for farm products
 Farmers went off to war – who’s going to grow our food?
 Brought an end to the horse-drawn era of farming
 End of 1930’s drought –
boom of irrigation systems
 New technology –
more work in fewer hours

27.  Government rationed sugar, butter, milk, cheese, eggs,
coffee, meat and canned goods
 Labor and transportation shortages –
difficult to move fruits and vegetables
to local markets
 Government encouraged citizens to
plant “Victory Gardens”
 Also known as “war gardens,” “food
gardens for defense”
 Formation of first neighborhood
cooperatives

31.  20 million Americans built home gardens in backyards,
empty lots and city rooftops
 Similar to movement today – new hip trend!
 “Can for the Troops!” in 1943 – 315,000 pressure cookers
purchased
 USDA estimates the result of this movement =
 20 million gardens
 9-10 million tons of vegetables and fruit
 Equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables
 WWII ended, so did gov’t promotion of victory gardens!
 Many people did not plant a garden in 1946

37.  End of war in 1945 – War
industries needed to find
civilian use for war technologies
 Postwar known as the “dawning
of the chemical age in pesticides”
 DDT – from grasshoppers to
house flies
 DDT allowed chemists to create
over 10,000 new chemicals
through experiments
 Lead to organochloride and
organophosphates of today

39.  Today, US farmer spends over
$11 billion on all pesticides –
58% herbicides, 28%
insecticides, and 8%
fungicides
 Herbicide 2,4-D known as
“wonder drug” for eradicating
weeds
 Surplus of pilots from the war
joined aerial spraying co.

50. EVENTS
What happens?
What is generally
UNSEEN PATTERNS & TRENDS
What’s been happening?
What are the trends?
What changes have occurred?
UNDERLYING STRUCTURES,
ORGANIZATIONS
What influences the above patterns?
MENTAL MODELS:
Assumptions, values...
What assumptions do people have about the above?
L
E
A
R
N
I
N
G

51.  Great Book! – Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook
 No Seasonality – tomatoes anytime you want em’
 Wrong Climate – Grown in Florida!
 Disease, nematodes, weeds...
 Fumigation
 Excess Synthetic Fertilizers
 Sterilized with Chlorine
 Picked from the vine GREEN
 Gassed with ethylene to ripen
 Low Wages, Slavery, & Poison

52. 1). PROBLEM = Wrong Climate – Grown in Florida!
 Never Winter – organisms and insects do not die from
frosts, blizzards, or cold snaps like rest of US
 Humidity feeds blights, wilts, spots, and molds
 Tomato already sensitive to these issues
 Sandy soil means no water retention and no nutrients
 Pests, fungi, nematodes, weeds... THRIVE!

53. 2). SOLUTION = Fumigation with methyl bromide, 31!
 Want to kill EVERYTHING in the soil
 Methyl Bromide – one of the most toxic chemicals
 PAN’s “Bad Actor”
 Can kill humans after brief exposure in small
concentrations
 Sub lethal doses – disruptions in estrogen production,
sterility, birth defects…
 Banned from most crops – still used on strawberries,
eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes
 Injected into newly formed beds and sealed with
polyethylene mulch
 “Soil chemotherapy” – makes soil lifeless

55. SOLUTION = Now the Herbicides
 More than 100 chemicals at Florida farmer’s hands
 Chemical Names – Arrow, Aim, Touchdown, Cobra,
Firestorm, GoalTender, and Prowl
 Six are PAN’s “Bad Actors”
SOLUTION = Finally the Fungicides
 Tomatoes notoriously vulnerable to fungal attack in FL
Keep leaves green and spotless with 31 fungicides
Eleven are PAN’s “Bad Actors”
An acre of FL tomatoes gets hit 5X as much as an acre of
CA tomatoes
EWG found 54% of samples contained detectable levels
of pesticides

56. 3). CONSEQUENCE = Excess Synthetic Fertilizers!
 Now that you’ve killed all the BAD and GOOD
microorganisms in the soil, must add nutrients
 Creates excess SALTS!
 TEMPORARY boost to soil productivity!
 Inability of soil to retain all the fertilizer applied!
 Estimated that ½ of every metric ton of fertilizer applied
to fields never makes it into plant tissue – evaporates or
washes into local waterways

57.  Early crop nutrition - fallowing, manures, cover crops…
 1840s –guano (dried sea bird manure) & rock phosphate
 Early 1900s – dependence on Nitrogen (=N) from legumes
 Synthetic Fertilizers - concentrated and convenient to use
 Scientific calculations to meet
individual crop req. instead of
unbalanced ratio of nutrients
from animal manures
 Got the P & K from NPK
(not just nitrogen)
 USDA recommended mix of
fertilizers at home –
more control for farmer

60.  WWI - N was a prime component of TNT
 Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch – synthesis of ammonia
 1921 – first NH3-based fertilizers in US (inorganic/
synthetic)
 By 1920s – inorganic N was half the price of organic N
 Natural gas – key component of NH3
 Petroleum and gas producers – major fertilizer producers
 WWII - US Gov’t built 10 new plants to produce ammonia
for munitions and N for bombs (730,000 tons NH3 /yr.)
 After the war, the surplus was used for fertilizing crops

62.  Production of nitric acid, the primary feedstock for
synthetic commercial fertilizer, is also a source of
nitrous oxide
 Nitrous Oxide - a greenhouse gas 310 times more
potent than carbon dioxide
 Accounted for 15.9
Tg CO2E in 2005
 Equivalent emissions
of 2.9 million vehicles.

63.  “Better Safe than Sorry” Attitude
 Surplus nutrients stimulate plant growth
 Algae blooms – consumes all O2 available in the water
and cause other plants and animals to suffocate
 Fertilizer runoff created “dead zone” 7,000 square
miles in Gulf of Mexico
 UN reported 150 dead zones in world’s oceans in 2007

64.  Bayer – world’s largest agrochemical co. / 7th largest
seed co.
 Syngenta – 2nd largest agrochemical / 3rd largest seed
 Monsanto – world’s largest seed co. / 5th largest
agrochemical co.
 DuPont – 2nd largest seed / 6th largest agrochemical

67. 1. Bayer (Germany) - $7,458m - 19%
2. Syngenta (Switzerland) - $7,285m - 19%
3. BASF (Germany) - $4,297m - 11%
4. Dow AgroSciences (USA) - $3,779m - 10%
5. Monsanto (USA) - $3,599m - 9%
6. DuPont (USA) - $2,369m - 6%
7. Makhteshim Agan (Israel) - $1,895m - 5%
8. Nufarm (Australia) - $1,470m - 4%
9. Sumitomo Chemical (Japan) - $1,209m - 3%
10. Arysta Lifescience (Japan) - $1,035m - 3%
Total $34,396m - 89%
Source: Agrow World Crop Protection News, August 2008