From Pollan's NYT article:

"the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food."

That chemical fertiler made from natural fas emits nitrous oxide, a 300+ yimes worse GHG than CO2.  The GHG emitted is equal to 2/3rds of the CO2 absorbed through the photosynthesis in the crop.

How can this be stopped?  With organic farming that recycles fertilizer.  As Pollan says by  composting organic waste.  Manure, food waste, crop waste, forest waste, even sewage.

The problem with this is that during the first stages of composting, the hot anaerobic phase, nitrous oxide is released.

By subjecting that waste to biodigestion this potent GHG, along with methane, a GHG 20+ times worse than CO2, is captured and can then be used for energy production to backup a renewable power grid.

The product that comes out of the digestor is a safe organic fertilizer free of pathogens.  

Every bit of organic waste processed this way produces an extra income source for farms, money saving organic fertilizer, and huge GHG offset.

Please, those of you who do have the next president's ear, explain why farm biogas can make organic farms the key to our GHG saving, renewable energy, oil independent future.  Let's pay farmers for our power, instead of big coal, big oil, and big nuclear corporate enpire.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

That a major party candidate just demonstrated a pretty good understanding and at least some interest in some of the more complex and involved issues we have facing us environmentally, and recognized their connection to other problems.

Small victory? At least.

"if the organic matter is nutritionally balanced -- not a whole lot of nitrous oxide or methane."

...If it is aereated.  I see it as a two step process, the concentrated high nitrogen waste digested anaroebically, to tield a high nitrogen, more stabilized, less gassey additive to aerobic compost, either in the soil itself or a compost pile waitng to be utilized.

Green manure and manure type waste could be digested anaerobically in the first step to produce energy and offset methane and nitrous oxide release.  

How much nitrous oxide and methane would properly composted waste produce? Not very much, but the usual procedure of pumping manure into ponds or pits open on the top to the atmosphere is a GHG disaster.

Composters unite!  Digest your hot waste first.  generate clean backup power for a renewable grid in the process.  You'll still have plenty of compost, fed with the biodigestor fertilizer.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

This also eliminates the pathogen problem.   That first germ killing biodigestion process.

These latest pandemics originate in inetrspecies manure/food stream intake and the development of resistant mutated strains of pathogens that migrate from species to species.  Bird flu to humans for instance.

It's a big issue.  As big as eliminating GHG?  Maybe, if pandemics start up.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

People with money to invest here, as with many businesses now.  The wealthy suck capital out of our econonmy and invest it elsewhere, immigrants invest here, in motels, stores, manufacturing, Toyota and Honda build auto plants, European companies build wind manufacturing plants.

I say we welcome entrepenurial immigrants.  Socially responsible progressive corporate investment and industrious new americans, most of us sprang from risk taking, adventurous immigrants.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Pangolin,

As a member of an Agriculture Resource Committee working to preserve dwindling farmland and agricultural significant areas and creating markets and opportunities for young--and old--farmers I hear your riff often. No land/capital/access/housing/etc for the young farmer wannabe. I should know. I was singing this song 20 years ago.

The rise in developments, ranchettes, farmettes and the realtor's wet dream of selling a country-life style to people whose horticultural expertise is killing Easter lillies or spider plants is gobbling up prime agricultural land at an unprecedented extent. Land values where I live are in the 10's of thousands per acre. While there is an educated community who believes they support good food choices and local farmers, they are in majority, fickle consumers. Support and markets access are far below what they need to be to have a sustainable local farming economy.

What I've found is most young farmers who've done their internship or college eco-ag programs are burning to get out there and farm. To create their own CSA empires. But slow and steady wins the race. Sure working 4 1/4 acre plots on opposite ends of town is hard work, but it's still an acre. An acre can produce a lot of food and make it's farmer enough money to buy more land in time. Bootstrapping is key. I couldn't/wouldn't run livestock if I had to afford permanent fences on land I don't own. Temporary fences and a lot of graft get me where I'm going.

The key is skill building. Patience. With crashing property prices, peak oil, and the tendency for the industrial-ag complex to implode there will be farmland available or certainly more land to farm. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people who have land which sits fallow who would love to get their own vegetables or meat but can't figure out how. Enterprising young farmers need to meet this challenge. I would gladly grow vegetables in a 1/2 dozen backyards I didn't own with the rent being produce and the profit from sales going towards my own land. Such arrangements may become commonplace soon.

As for 20 years in the future. . . those soft, fat urbanites too lazy to leave their xbox, cable tv and take-away to think about farming will be a thing of the past. They will either have perished through ineptitude or have changed with the times and taken control of their lives and begun to grow some of their own food or even find they want to grow food for others. The future is now. Those who wait for hand-outs, government aide, grants, or other free money will find out the heavy cost. A hoe, watering can and some seeds cost less than an hour's minimum-wage. Find some vacant land and get farming.

You have a choice--drive or eat--which will it be?