Wednesday, May 5 2010

Rotting Fish, Poop and Tea

One lump? One lump of what?

Vectored from the BBC: Assam tea estate goes organic. Sounds good, right? I'm an organic gardener (well, I have an organic garden, and I'm mostly organic) and appreciate the efforts folks make to eschew chemical fertilisers and pesticides--that stuff doesn't go away after it's finished fertilising plants and killing bugs--there is no 'away' for it to go, because everything lives here. Organic makes sense. But there is a less savoury side to organics that we have to confront on the way to earth-loving purity. According to the article,

Visitors making their way along the muddy track leading to the Gossainbarie tea estate in India's north-eastern Assam state will be greeted by huge mounds of cow dung, rotting water hyacinth, as well as and fish and meat waste.

If there's anything prettier than a steaming heap of compost, I don't know what it is.

And I thought my compost smelled bad.

There is, however, method behind the smelly madness and it has to do with efforts to save a failing tea estate and the ancient practices of Ayurvedic health. According to their consultant, Swami Valmiki Iyengara.

Mr Iyengara says he has studied Vriksh Ayurveda, a system of traditional medicine, and evolved a concept of organic farming that is both sustainable and profitable.

"All pollutants are useful wastes and we can convert most of them into organic manure," he says.

"The ancient Indian plant medicine details processes for creating organic fertiliser from virtually anything.

"Much as poisons like mercury are used in traditional Indian medicine, pollutants diluted with other materials produce the best fertiliser," he adds.

Water hyacinth, cow dung and cow urine have long been used as manure.

 But Mr Iyengara has also developed organic manure from fish waste, "charasuda" (butcher house waste), "indsafari" (small fish) and the "bhasmas" (made from herbs and metals).

One of my neighbours brews a compost 'tea' from rotting comfrey (a horrible weed around our garden) and on hot days the smell is pretty amazing, but I'm starting to think it might be perfume by comparison to this tea estate. But before the new owners instituted this organic regime production had dropped by two-thirds, and has since sprung back, growing 50% this year. As a side benefit, local pollution is being mitigated and soil is returning to health.

Lumbricus terrestris: fat and happy, a harbinger of soil health and the most important gardener I know

And for me that's what it's all about. Sure, fresh vegetables, fruit and pretty flowers are great, but I'm concerned about my little patch of soil--making more, making it rich and productive and healthy for the bees, birds, bunnies, badgers, beavers and other organisms I share my space with. Nothing makes me prouder than to see rich black soil tumbling out of my compost pile, loaded with fat, happy earthworms. More power to the tea growers! Well, as long as they stay downwind . . .

Cup of tea, anybody?

Posted by Mildly Nauseous Tim AT 9:53AM

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