AGFAX: February 2010
Compost making for the mechanised age
Dorothy Duodo: Blue Skies Ghana Ltd
Summary:
In Ghana, Blue Skies Ghana Ltd recycles large quantities of waste from its fruit processing operation, to make compost. Dorothy Duodo gives a guided tour of the process, from where the fruit peelings and pineapple crowns arrive, to the end product - sweet smelling, soil-like compost. On the way, she offers tips and hints for compost makers of all sizes.
Suggested introduction:
For years, farmers have been encouraged to make compost, so that the nutrients contained in waste plant material can be returned to the soil. But what about for large-scale agribusinesses? Is compost-making an option here too? The answer is definitely yes. In Ghana, for example, the Blue Skies factory buys huge quantities of fruit from local farmers to prepare fruit juices for the local market and packaged fruit salads for export. In the process, the factory creates a lot of fruit waste.
Blue Skies insists all its farmer suppliers use environmentally friendly farming methods in accordance with the standards of LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming). But the factory needs to be environmentally friendly too, so they are recycling the factory waste to return fertility back to the fields. As company employee Dorothy Duodo, explains, making compost from farm waste is a good idea, whatever the size of your farm.
Tape in:
For a LEAF farmer in Africa...
Tape out:
...like what we have here.
Closing Announcement:
Dorothy Duodo explaining how Blue Skies Ghana is making compost, turning waste into a resource and maintaining soil fertility.
Making the most of it:
Why not invite your listeners to phone in with their top tips for compost making? What is the best mix of ingredients? Do you need to add any water to the material? What is the best kind of container to collect the compost in, and how often should you turn it? What differences in the crop do farmers notice when they use the compost they make?
Further information:
Blue Skies website: www.bsholdings.com/news.aspx?i... and
New Agriculturist picture feature: www.new-ag.info/picture/featur...
Transcript
Duodo
For a LEAF farmer in Africa, we have to identify all the forms of waste on our farm and then we do what we call the waste separation. We separate the waste that can decompose from the ones that cannot decompose on our farm. So then we look at how we can turn the decomposable waste into something useful, probably compost that we can put back into the soil to replenish the nutrients in the soil and to give us quality products.
This is the waste that is used as raw material for the compost and it comes from Blue Skies. Blue Skies is an agro processing company that processes fruits into fruits salads and fruit juice. We have some pineapple, we have some paw paw and we have some mango peels, all mixed together. This is what we use as a raw material for the compost.
We do compost here on a big scale, but it does not matter, you can be a small farmer, you can be a medium-sized farmer, you can be a large farmer. All you need is your waste and then you produce your compost. It does not necessarily need to be very big.
I want to show you the other ingredients we use in our compost. We have the cardboard here. We have our wood shavings here. Then we have our poultry manure as well. Putting in different ingredients, you are bringing together micro organisms from different, different sources, and it gives you a very rich compost at the end.
If you are having wet and dry materials for your compost, what you need to do is, the dry materials will be laid first. Then you put the wet materials on top of the dry materials, so that the dry materials can absorb the moisture from the wet materials.
You need something to accelerate the breaking down of the tissues; that is called the starter or accelerator. But if you do not have that one, don't worry. It means you just need to chop your materials into smaller sizes, so that they can break down faster and you have your compost within a shorter time.
Now our mixture will take between two to three months to be fully matured for farm use. However, within that two to three months there are things you have to do, and that includes turning the mixture from time to time to beat out the stale air and to beat in fresh air. And also by turning you are redistributing the micro organisms that break down the tissues of your raw materials.
If you have a small heap, you turn it by hand with your spade or shovel and if you have a lot of heap, like what we have here, you use a turning machine.
And again, you have to monitor to see that your mixture is not very dry. So from time to time you can sprinkle very little water on your pile. And when you follow this very well, between two to three months your mixture will turn into a very good, sweet smelling, soil-like compost, like what we have here. End of track.
