Why Vermont farmers are using urine on their crops
116 comments
·March 2, 2025anticorporate
27theo
Yes it's amusing when people aren't aware of the benefits. I, too, have been peeing on anticorporate's compost pile for two or three years.
fifticon
I have been peeing on corporate for years, but I am very discrete about it, lest they find out it is me.
anticorporate
Jokes aside, part of my reduced reliance on corporations is growing as much of our food as we can ourselves.
RandomBacon
Too late, they already ran a DNA analysis on it and partnered with 23andMe, and because your cousin took a DNA ancestry test after receiving a kit as a present four years ago, corporate now knows it was you.
bigstrat2003
I pee on corporate as well, but I do so continuously instead of discretely. I'm peeing on corporate as I type this!
ashoeafoot
The plastic bamboo in the foyer grows like crazy.
pengaru
nit: discreet
nonethewiser
I think people would be even more surprised to learn how common it is to use processed sewage for fertilizer. Human waste.
In California, 76% of processed sewage goes to farming. 86% in Colorado.
https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/08/07/fertilizer-from-hu...
And its not just the US https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/02/sewage-s...
>Spreading the sludge on farmland is banned in the Netherlands, where incineration is preferred, but allowed in the UK. Dutch water authorities are eyeing the UK as a possible destination for their sewage
beebaween
Favorite part of my morning - like food waste I compost, why would I pay to use water to send back all of my urine nutrients back to my local water municipality?
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debacle
I've heard mixed things. Most folks recommend keeping human + pet waste out of compost. It depends on how hot your pile is and how quickly you move it into your garden.
inanutshellus
I believe that's referring to feces, not urine.
Most household (cat, dog, and human) feces is full of meat which draws the wrong kind of insects to the pile.
Urine though is okay and, arguably, beneficial to breaking down compost.
The only hard part is figuring out how to wave at your neighbors while fertilizing your compost heap. Do you wave with your off-hand or hot-swap as necessary? Decisions decisions...
debacle
The only neighbors in eyeshot of my compost pile are the ducks, and I don't think they really mind.
RajT88
Did not realize this. I will have to try it!
Late at night of course, my compost pile is by the road.
Anyone know if exposing yourself on your own property is considered public indecency? Asking for a friend.
interestica
There will be a few things you’ll want to do to minimize nitrogen loss. As soon as it’s out, it going to start turning into ammonia and as a gas, it will escape. (The ammonia itself has useful properties, and it’s why urine has been used for all sorts of processes in history(. Making the ‘outputs’ fairly acidic or basic will help keep the nitrogen from leaving in that way. Add vinegar so that the low pH will reduce the bacterial activity that creates the ammonia. Add wood ash to create a very basic environment (high pH) (you should actually get ammonium as a precipitate). Vinegar should also help reduce smells. You might wanna store it for a bit before depositing. (Unless you’re doing the direct deposit method).
always-open
Are you saying to add vinegar to the urine and then wood ash to the urine?
anonymous_sorry
I tend to relieve myself into a watering can in the privacy of the shed.
johnisgood
Pee in a cup or jug at home and take it outside.
littlestymaar
> We have a lot of carbons in the pile (mostly leaves) so adding the nitrogen helps it all break down faster
I know that nitrogen/carbon ratio is being brought a lot in compost discussions, but AFAIK most of the time people bring that up they are actually talking about bringing water, not nitrogen, to their compost.
And regarding this particular comment of yours about “nitrogen helping it break down” I suspect this is another instance of it. Dry leaves aren't a favorable environment for fungi and bacteria to grow, so adding water will definitely speed up the process a lot, while I'm not convinced adding nitrogen would have any effect in that regard.
Peeing on a compost pile is still good because it ads nitrogen to the compost itself, part of which will end up in the plant you give it, but it's probably less effective at it than peeing on the plants directly, because some of it will evaporate over time.
krunck
No, nitrogen is very important. The carbon to nitrogen ratios is crucial for optimal composting.[1]
Yes, compost must be moist to decompose. And peeing on the compost adds required moisture and nitrogen.
Don't pee on your plants. It can chemically burn some of them. Not to mention peeing on your lettuce is just gross.
My compost is for dealing with kitchen waste: veggie and fruit scraps, coffee grounds etc. It it so nitrogen rich that I need to add leaves to it regularly to keep the C/N ratio where it needs to be or it goes "sour".
knowitnone
I pee on my compost and I don't see any difference to the speed of composting between a good rain vs a gallon of pee.
diggan
> Dry leaves aren't a favorable environment for fungi and bacteria to grow, so adding water will definitely speed up the process a lot
Nor is an environment without sufficient nitrogen, IIRC, especially since dry leaves are really carbon-rich.
I'm guessing it would be easy for parent to test if it's the water, the nitrogen or both that helps the most. Science your way to an answer, as long as you're logging metrics should be easy enough :)
anticorporate
Since there were a couple of comments asking about water content, yes, we also keep our compost moist through adding water when needed (I also live in a rather moist region of the US). The previous owners of our property "gifted" us an above-ground pool that makes for a lousy swimming spot but a great water collection tank. We rarely have to use municipal water for anything garden-related.
aaron695
[dead]
alecco
Zero mention of the problem of hormones (contraception), antibiotics, and a lot of random things coming with human urine. It's very hard to get rid of those, last time I checked the best way was to let it break over YEARS. This is not viable at large scale. (My family used to be farmers)
And note the animal waste from feedlots is quite toxic and yet it's being used at scale without proper processing in some unscrupulous corporate farms. Or they dump it in "swine lagoons".
hombre_fatal
> Zero mention of the problem of hormones
This isn't true.
TFA links to a page that points out hormone uptake wasn't found in plant tissue and that the uptake of drugs like caffeine and tylenol are at tiny fractions of a minimum effective dose.
LordDragonfang
For caffeine this should be somewhat expected - it's a chemical produced as an insecticide by at least 3 or four completely unrelated families of plants.
Taylor_OD
https://richearthinstitute.org/how-it-works/
There is a treatment section on their website. They list details about pharmaceuticals in their guide as well.
https://richearthinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ur...
gruez
>While there are some pharmaceutical compounds detectable in crop tissue, the levels are extremely small–in the nanogram per gram (or parts per billion) range
I was somewhat skeptical about this given all the headline I've seen about birth control causing hormones to be in the water supply, but it checks out.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20977246/
>This paper reviews the literature regarding various sources of estrogens, in surface, source and drinking water, with an emphasis on the active molecule that comes from OCs. It includes discussion of the various agricultural, industrial, and municipal sources and outlines the contributions of estrogenic chemicals to the estrogenicity of waterways and estimates that the risk of exposure to synthetic estrogens in drinking water on human health is negligible
memhole
Are those taken up by plants? I think there’s even some debate around the effects of using treated wood for raised vegetable gardens. Last when I looked into it, I think there was some elevated arsenic in plants and the advice was to plant a few inches away from the edges of the bed since the exposure drops off.
colechristensen
>I think there’s even some debate around the effects of using treated wood for raised vegetable gardens
It's not a debate or the matter or health or organic wonks. "pressure treated wood" is treated with a compound of arsenic. Arsenic is quite toxic and readily leaches into the ground and your garden. Like you really shouldn't touch pressure treated wood, you should wear gloves and wash your hands after. It is banned in the US for construction of residential things which come into contact with humans and totally banned in several countries.
Leave pressure treated wood away from your food... a few inches planting away from it isn't enough.
jihadjihad
> "pressure treated wood" is treated with a compound of arsenic.
It depends--I am assuming you're referring to chromated copper arsenate [0] (CCA), which has been widely phased out in favor of other treatments, like copper azole [1].
I wouldn't go and build a raised garden bed out of copper azole treated wood either, but I also wouldn't be surprised if the leached copper etc. is quite a bit safer than CCA.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromated_copper_arsenate
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_preservation#Copper_azole
s1artibartfast
Chromated arsenic treatment was banned in pressure treated wood in 2003. Pressure treatment with less toxic chemicals is not banned.
https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/over...
gruez
see also:
PFAS in [sewage sludge] blamed for killing livestock in Texas and wreaking havoc
InDubioProRubio
Eh, uv diods? You lower them in, vibrate and rotate the material, degrade it? Standard processing step
appointment
The headline should specify _human_ urine. Spreading animal urine on crops is of course standard practice everywhere.
null
technothrasher
I recall visiting an experimental green technology farm in Wales back in about 1997. One of the things they were doing was composting leftover cardboard by peeing on it and waiting for it to breakdown. They also had a nifty water driven lift, and a big display about tidal power. I wish I could remember where exactly that place was.
dflock
Probably this place: https://cat.org.uk - Llwyngwern Quarry, Machynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ
gsf_emergency_2
same climes, different times
>A Salpetersjudare collected urine soaked earth to assist with the production of saltpeter.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Sweden_Occupation:_Salt...
dghughes
The NitroVolt concept looks interesting it uses less energy than Haber-Bosch process but it's only for nitrogen not phosphorus.
If you grow anything or even lawn care you know anything with phosphorus is very expensive usually double the cost of just nitrogen.
amoshebb
The emphasis on containerization and strictly using green energy makes me skeptical about the underlying technology…
If this “lithium-mediated ammonia synthesis reactor” is really so much more efficient, surely incumbent nitrogen plants would be camping on the sidewalk to be first in line?
Maybe it’s different elsewhere, but here farmers don’t use daily applications of small amounts of pure ammonia, they get an armada of co-op spreaders to deliver and apply dozens-hundreds of tons of dry blend in one big shot and then do nothing for months. There’s a reason production is so concentrated, and it’s not because farmers haven’t realized air is the main ingredient.
bluGill
From what I can tell, the efficiency comes from logistics and not the cost. Those large plants are cheaper to run, but then you need to get that ammonia from the factory to the field. Ammonia is very toxic (your household Ammonia CONCENTRATE is 99% water! we are talking 100% ammonia here). Your truck drivers need special training to haul it, they cannot drive on some roads (tunnels). Farmers - the least safety conscience group I know of - wear gas masks and protective clothing when they work with it (they will drink roundup on a dare). Everyone in the chain of handling it needs extra safety effort.
This thing is instead a box you put on the farm which means much less handling of it. It also means you can plan to have it on time (fertilizer shipments are sometimes late - when you apply notrogen matters). In short this can be more expensive than traditional processes, but has enough other benefits that people will be willing to pay that difference (after talking to their accountant).
amoshebb
so, we’re observing the same things, but drawing opposite conclusions.
A box on a farm means much MORE handling of it, no? Currently no farmer I’ve met has ever handled pure ammonia, only UAN or nitrate/other dry solids. And like you said, they’d rather not. (although I also don’t know any who would drink glyphosates with how quickly they eat sprayers)
How does a box help with timing? Each farm must either store enough on site for an entire application (which farmers could already do if that was worth the cost) as it’s slowly generated, or they’re constrained by daily output of the box. Late shipments are bad, but a renewable only box running out on a cloudy week? No angry phone call to the coop fixes this.
Spreading the cost to centrally produce and store lots over many farms/industries seems optimal when one needs infrequent but huge quantities of anything.
bluGill
No healthy lawn needs Nitrogen or Phosphorus! People just think drug addicted monocultres are beautiful, change attitudes and the world will be better off. There are suburban lots using as much fertilizer as an entire field on a farm.
A healthy lawn will have plenty of clover and other plants to fix nitrogen. People call those plants weeds, but they are not and we need to quit killing them. Rabbits peeing on your lawn will add nitrogen as well.
Phosphorus is a mineral and shouldn't be going anywhere. The plants take it in, then they die and it goes right back into the soil. If you have a new house you might need some initial phosphorus treatments because developments often destroy the soil, but after a few years there will be plenty.
Gardens are different. When you remove anything to eat it you take some phosphorus (and other minerals) away. If you are not returning your poop to the soil those minerals are gone. (returning poop if not done right can kill - there is good reason we have modern sanitation systems to remove human waste!) Nitrogen fixers can compete with your food plants and reduce yields by enough that you are often better off removing them from your garden and getting nitrogen otherwise. A lawn is not a garden.
scythe
They're not the only ones on that track:
But I do think the name NitroVolt is a little unfortunate because there is also a much more speculative (TRL 3) methodology in development which dispenses with fuel altogether to perform the reaction:
N2 + 12 OH- >> 2 NO3- + 6 H2O + 10 e-
...effectively producing nitrate directly from nitrogen with electricity. So I clicked expecting to see that, but it's still years to decades away.
btown
Any links to the research here?
bzmrgonz
If anyone knows people in this project, here is another project that goes hand in hand with this. Please forward them this, I think these could be a fixture in the cities if the farmers are willing to collect the urine. it's the dutch portable urinals. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portable-toilet-Neth... These can be bought from alibaba.
cluckindan
Transmissible prion diseases might become an issue. Prions do not compost and they are very difficult to inactivate (denaturing the misfolded protein is the only way)
ghfhghg
I grew up being taught to urinate on our rhubarb patches.
autoexec
I'm pretty sure most of the crops in the US are regularly sprayed in urine and shit. Many of the immigrant workers used on farms are treated like slaves, locked up when they aren't in the fields or kept in overcrowded housing without basic utilities. These workers aren't getting bathroom breaks.
Even on farms that don't treat their workers so poorly they aren't installing bathrooms in the middle of the fields they truck workers out to, or ferrying them back and forth all day either. Workers couldn't afford take the time to run off to the bathroom even if they had the option. They have quotas to meet and are paid by how much they get done in a day. They're not walking off the job site to use the bathroom. They'll just piss/shit on your veggies and smile to themselves as they think about Americans who don't wash their produce.
brodouevencode
> Many of the immigrant workers used on farms are treated like slaves, locked up when they aren't in the fields or kept in overcrowded housing without basic utilities.
While conditions aren't what most people consider comfortable, this is at best a major exaggeration. No, there aren't portable toilets out there (some farms do have them) - we'd go off to the side of the field, do our business, and get back to work. No one actively relieved themselves on any product. Most of us kept a damp towel around our necks for cleaning and heat relief, so that's what we would use. Every farm I worked on that supplied to grocers or sold independently had a washing/sanitizing system as part of the operation. So while it's not operating room clean, it's pretty damn clean by the time it got to the consumer. Also, all the mistreatment of migrant workers I experienced was only ever by other migrant workers.
autoexec
Not all workers are treated that way, but many are. If you were working illegally in the US it sounds like you were lucky.
It's been a huge problem in Florida: https://ciw-online.org/slavery/
The same story plays out all over the place.
Here it happened in Georgia: https://apnews.com/article/business-georgia-slavery-forced-l...
Here in Colorado: https://www.denverpost.com/2024/11/01/h2a-visas-workers-traf...
It's not even just limited to farms.
These guys were kept locked up at night and only let out to build luxury condos: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/slavery-towers-feds-sa...
This Texas lady forced them to work for her cleaning company: https://kfor.com/news/texas-woman-convicted-of-forcing-two-u...
This landscaping company in Tennessee did it: https://www.foxnews.com/world/tennessee-landscaping-business...
This lady in Illinois just wanted house slaves: https://www.foxnews.com/us/mexican-migrant-trafficking-woman...
11235813213455
Pissing or shitting on plants has positive effects if those people have a proper food, hydration, no drugs
mythrwy
This isn't even remotely true. Portable bathrooms are required in produce fields during cultivation and harvest, with hand wash stations and this is inspected. Food safety is a big concern at this point and that goes right down the field level (there could be room for improvements).
https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/dosh_publications/Field-Sanitati...
https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/19...
Also you present below one off cases of human trafficking (some not even in agriculture) but these are rare cases and is not "Many" or "Most" by any stretch of imagination for immigrant farm labors.
That's not to say it's a great easy life nor a way to get fabulously wealthy or anything.
Source: I worked in produce with immigrant laborers on 4 different farms.
erehweb
Pecunia non olet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecunia_non_olet
em-bee
how is this any different from using manure? it's been used as fertilizer for centuries, at least in europe, and it is still in use today. do american farmers not do this?
I'm always a little surprised at how surprised other people are when they hear this.
I've been peeing on our compost pile for years. We have a lot of carbons in the pile (mostly leaves) so adding the nitrogen helps it all break down faster. On my acre plot I've probably gotten three or four cubic yards of compost a year broken down with the help of pee.