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These days, everyone from backyard gardeners to big agri-businesses are increasingly using organic fertilizers. This is due in part to an increased consumer demand for organic produce. It’s also partly due to the positive press earned by “going green” and eco friendly.

The average person, however, may wonder if there’s any substance to all these buzz words. Are synthetic fertilizers really that bad for agriculture and dangerous to animals and people? Are organic fertilizer really all that much better and safer? If so, why? And what are “organic fertilizers” anyway? This article will try to answer these questions for you.

WHAT ARE ORGANIC FERTILIZERS?

Non organic fertilizers are made from synthetic or artificial chemicals while the organic fertilizers are made from natural elements and materials. It may seem easy to differentiate the inorganic with the organic, but there are some facts about the organic that can be misleading. One example of issue is the misunderstanding of the composition of the mineral limestone, saltpeter and mine rock phosphate. People know that these are technically inorganic, but they are used for centuries as safe and good organic fertilizers since these are natural minerals.

Actually, organic fertilizers are directly created from various organic materials that are already decayed and rotted naturally. Just like the decaying process of dead plants and animals, the original compositions of the body become a biomass of high quality nutrient making the broken components of water and minerals the organic materials.

Organic fertilizers are easy to create. The simple and common form of this is the compost from animal manures. Since this is readily available, contains a high nutrient value, and more affordable, many farmers and backyard gardeners use the compost as organic fertilizers. Some farmers also use directly on soil some dead plants or leaves, grasses, seaweed, peat, food leftovers, and many more.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH INORGANIC CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS?

Many inorganic fertilizers contain synthesized chemicals that do not occur naturally in nature, and thus can become harmful. The introduction of such chemicals, if used extensively over time, can throw off the local environment and ecosystem.

Chemicals used as fertilizers will extensively affect everything and everyone. This happens because when it rains and the chemicals are washing into the soil. As the rainwater flows through the varied bodies of water, more and more living things in and out of the water are affected. The chemicals will also reach the groundwater, which is where drinking water comes from.

Lastly, inorganic fertilizers are absorbed by crops and plants. Once people eat the produce that came from those crops, the chemicals will stay in their body and will result in health problems. Eating produce with chemicals for only a single time may not harm anyone, however if you continue to consume products grown with inorganic material, you will eventually see its bad effects on your health.

WHAT MAKES ORGANIC FERTILIZER BETTER?

When organic fertilizers are used and introduced by farmers into the local environment the materials are naturally occurring plant and animal matter and they do not have the negative affect on the environment found with inorganic fertilizers.

When it comes to crop growth, using organic fertilizers resulted to positive outcome. Synthetic fertilizers come as concentrated chemicals which means less is used, whereas the organic fertilizers are already diluted and requires the use of more. Even though this is the case and it does take more organic fertilizer to do the same as synthetic fertilizer, the benefits of using organic material far out weight inorganic products. When using organic material the soil will slowly release the nutrients into the soil, which will eventually increase the crop growth rate for a better production.

Lastly, organic fertilizers were studied over for 32 years in Sweden and based on this study, organic fertilizers have been found to be better than synthetic fertilizers, because they recorded high yields of 65% with organic compared to 50% with synthetic.

We hope this article has answered some of your questions about organic fertilizers, and it’s uses in organic gardening and organic farming. This article, however, is just the tip of the iceberg, there is much more to learn. If you want to try using organic fertilizers, we suggest doing more research so you can find just the right fertilizer for your garden.

DISCLAIMER

The article is intended for information about organic fertilizers, organic farming and organic gardening only. It should not be regarded as scientific or expert advice in its own right. The information has been taken from secondary sources and is given here in good faith. We recommend you conduct your own research with expert & scientific sources prior to making fertilizer purchases or applying any fertilizer technique mentioned here.