Organic food purchases now exceed $50 billion dollars. In 2010, organic food sales totaled almost 23 billion. Each year, organic food demand increases 5% to 12%, with an average 9% increase per year.* This demand has been driven by women and men shopping for clean, healthy, local food for their families.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced families to stay at home and ushered in the advent of consumers starting “Victory Gardens” to produce a portion of their healthy food. To produce the healthiest, best tasting, safest vegetables and fruit they need to be using fertilizer, soil amendments, and safe insect and disease control.
The above inputs are produced under the guidelines of the National Organic Program from the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and can be located by looking for the seal, “OMRI” (Organic Materials Review Institute) located on the labels. Only food can be called organic! Inputs can only be listed as being produced under the guidelines of the National Organic Program.
Many of the OMRI-listed fertilizers are produced using fish scrap from fishermen and fish processors. For centuries, fish has been recognized as an excellent fertilizer source. Remember your grade school history lessons: the pilgrims learned to grow great corn by following the example of local Native Americans who always placed a fish with each corn seed.
For this reason we have developed multiple all-natural liquid fish formulas for organic and conventional crop production.
Fish fertilizers are composed of 18 amino acids, enzymes, vitamins, and nutrients, which when applied to the soil and plants, feed the plants along with increasing the biology of the soil. A biological soil is a living soil with billions of microorganisms and earthworms. It’s a must for healthy vegetables and fruits.
We make our fertilizers from fresh fish carefully processed at low temperatures to maintain the integrity of naturally occurring amino acids, vitamins, and enzymes. The raw material is then stored in digestion tanks to liquefy the product. This method produces a product called a "fish protein hydrolysate."
Drammatic fish protein hydrolysates contain the natural oils and proteins of fish, which break down slowly to become available over a longer period of time.
In contrast, the majority of fish fertilizers on the market today are known as "emulsions." First the fish is cooked and the oil removed for paints and cosmetics. Then the protein is removed and dried to make fish meal for livestock feeds. The remaining wastewater is condensed into a brown, thick liquid called an "emulsion."
There are a number of companies that produce fish fertilizers. There are two or three on the East Coast, two in the Midwest, and two or three on the West Coast. The largest three producers are Dramm Corporation (Drammatic Brand), Neptune’s Harvest, and Organic Jem.
*Statistics from news release of the National Organic Trade Association
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By Dan Heims, President, Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
Photographs courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
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