Benefits
Composting is an age-old practice that is intrinsically tied to food production and consumption. Farmers who have intimate knowledge of their soils and want access to high-quality compost are ideal stewards of the composting process. Farms often have equipment that can be repurposed for composting, may be able to produce compost less expensively than purchasing it, and can tailor their composting recipes for their specific soil and crop needs. Composting recycles nutrients and organic matter from farm residuals, manures, and animal mortalities, but food scraps from off-site can be used to improve composting recipes.
Soil Health Benefits
- Applying high-quality compost to agricultural soil as a soil health management practice can be crucial for both rebuilding and protecting soil.
- Compost as a soil amendment improves soil structure, increases soil fertility, suppresses plant disease, improves nutrient cycling, prevents soil erosion, and increases soil resilience to drought and extreme weather.
Farm Prosperity and Community Self-Reliance
- On-farm composting adds to local composting capacity and facilitates the use of compost in agricultural soil – which can reduce the amount of synthetic fertilizers a farm needs – and may provide additional sources of income to farms via tipping fees and compost sales.
- Benefits to soil health result in better crop yields, which increase food security, and support farm profitability.
- On-farm compost use also reduces the demand for resource- and carbon-intensive fertilizers and irrigation systems, decreasing operational inputs and costs and making farms less susceptible to instability in global markets.
- Composting further creates local jobs and local production of compost contributes to more localized, resilient food systems.
Environmental and Climate Benefits
- The benefits of composting also extend to the broader environment, the climate, and society.
- Food alone often makes up a significant portion of a community’s waste, while all compostable materials combined make up the single largest component of waste generated. Whereas materials thrown in the trash end up in polluting landfills or incinerators, composting food scraps and other organic materials avoids emissions associated with disposal, which is “a climate game changer.”
- Adding compost to soil provides essential organic matter and is another key short-term climate strategy as compost enhances soil’s ability to store carbon, especially in degraded soils.
Survey
Are you a farmer interested in composting or using more compost on your farm? What are the barriers standing in your way? Help us advocate for local composting to make more high-quality compost available for agricultural use by completing this survey. (Information can be shared anonymously).
Key Resources
ILSR hosted a series of webinars to support a distributed and diverse composting infrastructure that includes community-scale and on-farm composting. These webinars feature experts from across the industry and cover the ins and outs of on-farm composting and compost use. Topics include setting up a composting area on your farm, integrating composting into your farming business, developing composting recipes, sourcing feedstocks, interpreting a compost test report, and understanding the different benefits of and uses for compost on the farm.
The Mid-Atlantic Better Composting School hosted a series of webinars that mirrored its compost operator training and prepared participants for regional compost facility operator certification examinations.
ILSR’s Introduction to On-Farm Composting: Webinar Series (2021)
Mid-Atlantic Better Composting School Webinars
Policy to Advance On-Farm Composting & Compost Use
There are many avenues to remove political and operational barriers and advance on-farm composting and compost use. These resources cover a variety of strategies to further local on-farm composting, with a particular focus on local and state government intervention.
On-farm Composting Rules and Permit Exemptions
On-farm Composting Rules and Permit Exemptions
Policy options, model examples, and tools to promote local on-farm composting, many of which focus on permit exemptions to remove political and operational barriers for on-farm composting.
Webinar on State Permitting Pathways for Advancing On-Farm Composting
Webinar on State Permitting Pathways for Advancing On-Farm Composting
Permit exemptions can authorize compost operations on farms and smaller-scale facilities. Many states have incorporated permit exemptions into their composting regulations and some states have additional regulatory pathways that support farms and other small-scale sites that are ready to scale up. This webinar explores models from around the country and explores the impact these rules are having.
Healthy Soils and Compost Policy Guide: Synergies and Opportunities
Healthy Soils and Compost Policy Guide: Synergies and Opportunities
Provides an overview of the overlap between healthy soils and compost in policy and covers current opportunities for policy to advance soil healthy practices, high-quality compost production, and compost use throughout the country.
Composting and Climate Action Plans: A Guide for Local Solutions
Composting and Climate Action Plans: A Guide for Local Solutions
Reviews opportunities, strategies, and tools for incorporating local composting into climate action plans, including template language, model measures, and existing examples to support urban and rural farmers in producing and utilizing compost (measure 4).
Model Composting Policy Library
Model Composting Policy Library
Existing model composting policies at the local, state, and federal levels, along with policymaking tools and resources within each topic. Features policies for organics diversion and recovery; zoning and permitting; infrastructure, funding, and capacity; soil health; and end markets for compost. These include model policies for Compost-Amended Soil Requirements, Policies on Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration, and Compost Procurement Policies.
Composting Association of Vermont’s On-Farm Food Scrap Composting Toolkit
Composting Association of Vermont’s On-Farm Food Scrap Composting Toolkit
Provides technical support and training for community-oriented food scrap composting and manure management on farms in rural and small communities throughout the U.S. The overarching goal of this project and resulting Toolkit is to reduce solid waste, avoid water pollution, and increase soil health and farm resiliency.
Maryland Spotlight
ILSR’s Composting for Community team has more than a decade of history actively working with state and local officials, legislators, and advocacy groups to advance favorable composting policies in the state, including on-farm composting. Check out our history of work here.
Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) Rules
- Maryland Compost Regulations by Title (MDE)
- MDE Organics Diversion and Composting: guidance and documents for composting facility permits, facilities, facility regulations, county food scrap collection programs, fact sheets, legislation and reports, additional information, and resources.
- 2023 Maryland On-Farm Composting Permit Exemptions: expands permit exemptions by passing SB262/HB253 “On-Farm Composting Facilities – Permit Exemption.” This new law requires the MDE to adopt regulations that more than double the area allowed for food scrap composting – from 5,000 sq ft for space used “in support of composting” to 10,000 sq ft. for “active composting.”
- ILSR documentation of the new bill and our involvement in its passing
- Regulation guidelines are currently being drafted by MDE, and we anticipate their release shortly.
- Permitting Guidance for Maryland Composting Facilities (2022): Details the 2015 rules change to tier permitting structures which exempted on-farm and small sites from needing a full composting facility permit for processing certain feedstock types in particular quantities (5,000 sq ft exemption).
- COMAR 26.04.11.06: On-Farm Composting Facilities – Permits Required (current regulations)
- Maryland Healthy Soils Program
Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) Rules
- Maryland Compost Regulations by Title (MDA)
- Product registration form
ILSR’s Hierarchy highlights the importance of locally based composting solutions as a first priority over large-scale regional solutions. On-farm composting is included in the Small-Scale Decentralized and Medium-Scale, Locally Based tiers.
