It’s only the feed lots for beef cattle and the dairy farms when the cows are being milked where manure accumulates and could be collected. Beef cattle spend most of their lives in the field where collecting manure would be tough, plus it needs to go back into the ground to grow more grass and even then, they occasionally have to fertilize due to their monocrop being grass. Likewise with dairy cows. They spend most of the day in the field and their manure is needed there. The manure in beef cattle feed lots has all sorts of nasty stuff in it. Hormones, antibiotics etc and at least has to be composted.
There is a method called regenerative agriculture where nitrogen fixing legumes are planted once a year, then that’s knocked down with a roller/crimper and corn is no-till planted right into it. Soil is pre-mulched and fertilized.
Mob grazing is a technique that dumps a lot of manure at once without eating the forage down to 2 inch stubs. It regrows quick and lush and the soil always has a good thick layer of plant life. No fields are burned and are rarely mowed. Forage is stockpiled for the winter. In other words, keep them off of it so there’s 2-3 foot tall growth going into winter. There will be enough green stuff hiding down lower and very little if any supplemental hay is needed.
Both are no till techniques that always leaves the soil covered and builds natural soil instead of losing it and/or dumping chemicals on it. No run off, no dust bowls, both of which still happen today but the clouds of dust are paler than the great dust bowl of the 30s because the soil is crappier.
But Big AG likes chemicals from Big Chem and politicians like their campaign donations from both and Big AG and Big Chem have a rotating door with the EPA and USDA.
That and the sustainable techniques require planning and a lot of thought put into it and most farmer’s want the easy button way. Fire up the tractor and dump white powder on it. It also doesn’t scale up to Big AG size yet but is getting closer. We need a lot more 80-800 acre farmers instead of 20,000 acre farmers with soy/corn/wheat monocrops and GPS controlled machines. The processed foodstuff made from soy/corn is crap anyway.
Need a lot more than just more small farmers of course. Need local/regional processing and distribution systems but that would require legislation and rule changes. People need to learn to cook instead of 4 easy steps printed on the back of the box. Anyone with a yard needs to garden. Anyone with a bit of land needs to grow animal based protein, even if just eggs. Need animals that are bred for smaller operations.
Instead of “a chicken in every pot”, we need a start to finish chicken production and distribution system in every county that’s not city. Likewise with beef and pork. The number of universities teaching useless woke stuff compared to the number teaching how to grow food needs to be reversed. Just like the millions of Vo-Tech schools there are, we need millions that teach small AG.
Screw all these service and office jobs making walmart and amazon bigger. Feed some people instead.
There are millions of microscopic life forms in healthy soil. Big AG soil, not so much.
(rant off)
“Need local/regional processing and distribution systems but that would require legislation and rule changes.”
THIS is the huge one. Regulations lock out the little guy.
Excellent post man. Thank you. Absolutely, there are many forks that can be done so that we can be independent from DuPont.