Sir James Hutton, the Founder of Modern Geology, who was also a farmer, said in his
unpublished “Principles of Agriculture” (discovered after his death in 1797):
“In this world the science of man is intended to cooperate with the means employed
by Nature.”.
- a profound and early environmental statement. He further considered the Earth to
be a super-organism and that its correct study is therefore physiology - the study
of all of the parts, processes and their inter-relationships. This applies particularly
to organic matter, a fundamental component of the natural world 
Thriving Soils 
Re-use of Organic Matter EU SOIL Healthy
Crops & Animals
STRATEGY
Healthy & Intelligent People
This is perhaps best illustrated in the “climax“ ecosystem communities, such as virgin
Amazonian rain-forest. Here the nutrition to sustain the ecosystem, including the
bio-massive tree community, is derived from the natural recycling of ALL organic
matter - vegetable or animal. It is appropriate to recycle organic matter to the
next growth cycle at any scale, domestic to industrial and the responsibility rests
with ALL of us, individually or nationally. This is true whether or not global warming
is taking place - it is an issue of sustainable management of organic resources.
The necessity to divert organic waste from landfill has never been so pressing as
today. Scottish Local Authorities currently landfill some 1.5mt/a of biodegradable
municipal waste (BMW) - by 2020 we have to have reduced this by 2/3, by 1mt. According
to WRAP each inhabitant generates c90kg/a - with a population of 5m we can (even
if we could attain 100% participation) therefore only achieve <500,000t, or half
the required reduction, from domestic properties, . We must target the food processing,
food preparation and catering industries.
