By Daniel Hoffmann
Detested by most, you are revered by us organic growers. In fact, we pay big bucks for you! Whether from horse, cow, chicken, turkey, sheep, goat…you’re all gold. Our primary job as organic growers is to care for the soil, and we do so largely be feeding it. So, throughout the growing season, we heap mounds of poop into our garden beds. (In fact, we’ve received deliveries of over 800 cubic yards of you on our farm during the last 6 months.) Whereas conventional growers use chemicals to feed the plants, we use you to feed the soil which in turn feeds the plants. You support the web of life in the soil — the worms, the fungi, the bacteria, the nematodes. And our kale plants, our tomatoes, our beans, our garlic — none of them could thrive like they do, without you. You sustain the critters of the soil, plants, animals, humans — essentially all life everywhere. Amazing that something considered so vile and disgusting could be so critical for survival of all living things. So, here’s to you Poop — while we may call you “Number Two”, you’re number one in our hearts.