The practice of peeing on food plants has been shown to be beneficial for thousands of years.
Our modern squeamishness has made it necessary for gardeners and farmers to resort to expensive fertilization to get the vital vitamins and minerals they need.
Some of the farmers who are most in need of these additional resources don't have access to the proper equipment to use them. Many farmers in the remote regions of the Republic of Niger are struggling to produce crops due to a lack of soil nutrients.
A team led by a researcher from the National Institute of Agricultural Research of Niger looked into resurrecting this ancient practice, which is being used in parts of Asia, of using pee asfertilizer, with some modern twists of course.
A group of women from Africa volunteered to help with the test. In the harsh lands of sub-Saharan Africa, women contribute a higher share of labor for food production than men, but they don't have control of the land or resources.
These women end up with fields that are not as rich in vitamins and minerals.
The product was named Oga, which means "the boss" in the Igbo language. The social, religious and cultural barriers to discussing the use of human urine were to be smoothed over.
The first group of volunteers continued to use their traditional farming methods, while the second group received training on how to use Oga safely.
Industrialfertilizer is usually made by intensive mining of ores. In one of the most CO 2 intensive chemical making reactions, burning natural gas sequesters nitrogen from the air we breathe. Plants use all three of these elements to make food.
Our urine is full of many of the vitamins and minerals that are easy to find in an easy to access form.
When pee leaves our bodies due to the ammonia in it, it is sterile. It is possible to store canisters in temperatures between 22 to 24 C ( 71 to 75 F) for two to three months to destroy remaining pathogens.
The women were trained in how to suck the Oga out of it. After applying the Oga in combination with organic manure, they were able to try Oga alone.
The people who used Oga experienced a 30 percent increase in pearl millet yield. Many other women in the area began using Oga after seeing the difference.
"Oga is a low risk, low financial input fertilizer option ready for dissemination on sandy Sahelian sites with low pearl millet yield levels," the researchers wrote in their paper.
It could increase crop yields and reduce fossil fuel intensive resources needed to grow them if we used this product in industrialized countries. In Sweden, the US and Australia, groups are looking into the use of urinefertilizer.
Millions of dollars a year are spent trying to treat our waste before it goes into receiving waters for acceptable nitrogen and phosphorus criteria, according to a researcher.
If we can close that loop it would be a good idea to look after our planet a bit better.
More than a thousand women farmers began using Oga after the experiment in Niger.
The research was published in a journal.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
