What a stink......

Sewage Sludge (Biosolids) — land application, health risks, and regulatory failure – Bioscience Resource Project...

 

Please don`t worry Marley - I can SO understand your comments, as I`ve previously had a belly full of retired ''City dwellers'' who don`t have a clue.
The trouble is that farming in this day and age (wot makes me officially ancient) is very very different to the way it used to be. It`s a subject close to my heart, and is more about short cuts and money than common sense in so many bliddey cases.

ps... I will be making a few enquiries

 

No problems Marley, and as Tetters has responded favourably, I am sure no member of the forum has been offended. Not wishing to be rude etc but. Not long ago I was listening to a lecture in London, must have been about 130 in the lecture hall, suddenly folk became a bit agitated, some member obviously couldn't contain himself. "Hells bells, who did that" he almost shouts out. Yes another member had broken wind....silently. Not the usual smell at a lecture.

All through our life our sense of swell is attacked thousands plus times a day. Some smells we tolerate others we don't only find offensive but, for whatever reason, we just can't get used to. I can tolerate most except for that cadavac smell of dead decomposing bodies and dead cats.

Quite possibly country and city dwellers become accustomed to the smell of farm animals, slurry and even chemicals. It's perhaps the now and then twitching of the nose that annoys us.
I tried in my post to emphasize the regulations regarding immediate turning into the ground, this acts like shutting the lid down on the loo. Farmers usually are fighting the elements, other chance their arm.

The question. Is using Biosolids that are mainly human waste, is it safe to use on field where food crops are to be grown. The powers to be, tell us that all is well. The very same powers along with the scientist, told us that GM crops were safe. I've done a lot of work on the latter. If you want to do your own research. Consider when Diabetes 2 suddenly exploded. Compare that with the alarm bells of the sudden increase in obesity. Perhaps one day a new disease will raise it's ugly head.

One would reasonably perhaps think. Well, we are made from the ground. What we eat eventually goes back to the ground. OK war films and documentaries often mention prisoners having to drink their own urine but!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! go on. Eat your XXXX it will do you good. Pass the ketchup please lol.

 

If sludge has been properly treated and spead it ought not to be a problem or health risk. We do get some horribly niffy smells from time to time before farmers plough it in, but it isn't all that worse than when they spread silage.
The rules are pretty expicit :
Sewage sludge in agriculture: code of practice for England, Wales and Northern Ireland

 

The heat is making the Ammonia smell worse

Don't forget you have the bioslids and then you have the Industrail waste ie factory washings which can come from food factroys

Please remember not every one plays by the rules

 

good morning, I wonder if the sludge police are on duty today ... cannot decide about breakfast, cornflakes or oats ...

Oops, didn`t press 'post reply' - had breakfast ages ago - honest...
@Jiffy - that`s precisely what worries me, not everyone plays by the rules...

 

Up at the old airfield where we walk the farmers in the spring bring in trailer loads of black stuff which they dump at the side of the field and onto the concrete runway and for weeks it stinks so much so that we have had to go elsewhere for our walks.When we do eventually go back you can see where a dark liquid has oozed out of it and that then runs across the concrete track There is no straw in the black stuff so can only assume it isn’t animal related.Eventually after quiet a few months these piles form a crust all over them so in the end it looks like volcanic larva that has cooled down.After some time the farmer scoops it all up with his big bucket on the end of his tractor and this is taken away and then spread onto the fields and ploughed in ready for the next crop to be sown after it has been harrowed.

Other farmers pick a part of their fields that already have a crop growing on it and just pile the black stuff onto it and that also stinks for a few weeks before it eventually the smell dissipates and the farmer just harvests the crop round it.

I can only assume this stuff is the human waste that members are talking about on here as when we have seen stuff that comes out of the sheds after the cows have been turned out into the fields in the spring looks nothing like this black stuff

When we walk along the old railway line that is now a walk/cycle/horse track we have one of those pumping stations along it with the large concrete type vats that have water sprayed on the stuff and that does sometimes smell a bit in hot weather so we tend to walk a bit faster to get past it

Can someone on here tell me if cows were left out in the fields all year round years ago or have they always been taken indoors in the winter months,?as I don’t ever remember there being these big cow sheds when I was a kid so not sure if this is a modern practise or not as this was something me and Mr Kandy was talking about on our walk this morning

 

That's modern life now and no one is there to police it, no one reports it, if some snitches still nowt done, there shouldn't be any laws/rules broken at all with food poduction as we all have to eat it even the one's that are breaking the rules/laws will

 

It depended/depends on a number of factors but probably the most important is the soil type. Also do you mean cows or cattle; there is a subtle difference. Cows often refers to dairy cows. If the soil type is wet, cattle/cows are unable to be left out all winter. They get too cold and wet and their feet poach up the ground. So those with heavy land have always brought their cows in for the winter. Bullocks and young stock can normally stay out a bit longer. For those on sandy or chalky land in some years they can be kept out the whole winter.

Re the large sheds you refer to: well farms have gradually got bigger and bigger so the numbers of animals has increased....so bigger barns are required to house them in in the winter. I really despair at the size of some dairy herds these days. In our day of dairy farming we had only 60 cows plus followers. Now some herds are 300+ cows. Not good IMO.

 

There are different ways of farming now, some farmers (big ones) keep cows in all year, some (family Farmers) cows out April to November and inside for the winter months, some farmers (few now) used to leave out all year (New Zealand way)

 

400 - 500 - 600 now 300 is average family farm now

 

As far as I can remember back, cows were kept in smaller herds, on smaller farms, but I remember seeing far more of them.
Because of various reasons, like BSE - for one there seem to be fewer roaming in the fields now. I do remember as a child, about 150 years ago seeing cows with their hay in cowsheds during the cold months.
Small farms, small herds, small shops, small fields all seemed to serve our purpose better. Smaller machinery, or no machinery gave far more people employment too.... but then we had progress ...
It seems that this "progress" left us rather short of good ol'fashioned cow muck for our growing crops, and nowadays we are sprinkling on all kinds of ..... rubbish - for want of a better word!!

 

Sorry you have to put up with this @Tetters - I've never heard of spreading human waste before and am surprised it is legal. Common sense says it can't be healthy. If enough people make a fuss I'm sure the farmers can be persuaded to change, such as ploughing it in straight away. Complain to the council? Then letters to the local paper, you might find there are many people just putting up with it instead of complaining.

Having re-read the thread I see it could be the sludge from sewage works, I think that has always been spread but only after it became inert after proper treatment. Sounds like they are spreading more or less raw sewage to make such a pong. In such case the water/sewage companies will be to blame as well as the farmer.

I was brought up on a farm and even studied Agriculture at University, what I can remember about that subject all those years ago is next to nothing, but one thing sticks in my mind, from scientific trials farm yard manure spread on fields had to be ploughed in within a day, after that it becomes less and less effective. So if it not ploughed in then really the farmer is using his land as a waste disposal service with no benefit to the soil or future crops.