Location
States
New MexicoIntroduction
Soil plays a major role in mitigating the effects of climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.
Learn more about climate change due to its ability to draw down and sequester carbon from the atmosphere. In particular, agricultural and degraded soils hold great potential as a carbon sink. Every year, one-third of food produced globally for human consumption goes to waste, most of which ends up in a landfill (FAO, 2011; Sharma et al., 2021). However, food waste itself can be viewed as a resource and turned into something useful to mitigate climate change and produce more food. One way to close this waste loop is through using food waste to increase soil health and productivity.
The Johnson-Su bioreactor is a relatively new system that can be used to compost food waste. It is a static aerobic composter, meaning it does not require the manual labor of turning over material, and does not produce undesirable smells which could attract pests. Adding shredded biomass to the food reduces the risk of the product going anaerobic during the incubation process. The product sits in the bioreactor for one year. During that time, the bioreactor, which is typically a 5 foot tall cylinder with a 39 inch diameter, requires only one gallon of water per day. The final product is a liquid inoculant full of living microorganisms, primarily fungi, that can be used to grow new food. A much smaller amount of product is needed compared to traditional compost: two pounds of product can inoculate one acre of land, reintroducing beneficial microorganisms to degraded soil. Once applied, the Johnson-Su inoculant can also sequester up to 30 metric tons of carbon per acre.
Recognizing the climate change mitigation potential that Johnson-Su bioreactors hold, the Upper Gila Watershed Alliance (UGWA) founded the New Earth Project, currently based in Santa Clara, New Mexico. The New Earth Project is a climate solutions program that addresses interconnected environmental issues including carbon draw-down, food system resilience, food waste reduction, and soil improvement. The idea came in 2021 from a 1.5-day “Climathon” jointly organized by UGWA and the environmental action platform 2811, to brainstorm how to integrate composting into waste management in Silver City, New Mexico. UGWA won a grant from the Environmental Justice and Climate Resilience Grant Program (EJ4Climate) which funded a two-year pilot phase. As this pilot period nears completion, lessons and successes will inform m.the next, more permanent phase of the New Earth Project.
Key Issues Addressed
Land degradation through unsustainable agricultural practices can decrease the soil’s ability to store carbon. Soil carbon and nitrous oxide can also be released into the atmosphere as a result of degradation, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions which fuel climate change. Additionally, degraded soils lead to poor plant growth, resulting in reduced photosynthesis and reduced carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere.
Climate change impacts the soil and yields of farmers and ranchers in all types of agriculture, from large-scale monoculture to small home gardens. Alterations in weather patterns due to climate change lead to changes in soil moisture, erosion, and nutrient loss, reducing the quality and quantity of yields and creating need for accessible solutions.
Communities produce waste. In southern New Mexico, this waste often falls into two major streams: food waste and liability biomass. Food waste is created when uneaten food gets thrown out at restaurants, cafeterias, and in homes. Liability biomass is all the extra trees and branches that result from forest thinning projects to reduce the risk of severe forest fires. When all this waste breaks down in landfills, it releases harmful greenhouse gasses like methane into the atmosphere. Methane traps extra heat in the atmosphere, warming the Earth’s surface, contributing to climate change.
Project Goals
The project works to mitigate climate change effects by harnessing the carbon draw-down potential of degraded and agricultural soils. They are developing a regional compost distribution system to increase agricultural producers’ access to compost, thereby reducing reliance on and limiting the use of fertilizer.
The project aims to close two significant waste loops: community food waste and liability biomass. They accept all food waste from cafeterias including cheeses and meats, which are not accepted in many traditional compost systems. They mix this with shredded woody biomass that they obtain from U.S. Forest Service thinning projects.
The project helps the Silver City community adapt to climate change by increasing local food system resilience with Johnson-Su product, an innovative type of compost with excellent carbon sequestration ability. The project intends to sell their fungal-dominated compost product to local farms, schools, and community gardens at a low price to help rehabilitate their soils, increase their yields, and rebuild topsoil.
Project Highlights
New Earth Kids: To amplify young voices, the New Earth Kids monthly radio show features students discussing actions they take to combat contemporary environmental challenges, with topics ranging from youth activism to school gardens.
- Diverting Cafeteria Food Waste: In their original grant proposal, the project team had cautiously hoped to collect food from school cafeterias once per month. But once the project began, there was so much food that they had to collect it daily from each school, totalling 1,000-1,200 pounds of food per week. After seven months at three schools, the project diverted 12 tons of food waste and mixed that with 24 tons of shredded wood. They put the mixture into 37 bioreactors, which all together will create enough finished product to inoculate 13,000 acres of agricultural land.
- Bringing Soil Back to Life: While compost is generally thought of as a way to apply nutrients to the soil, Johnson-Su product applies beneficial microbiology to increase overall soil health and function. The product inoculates soil with high amounts of microorganisms which can benefit any agricultural system. Restoring biological activity to degraded soils can increase crop yield, soil nutrient availability, soil water-retention capacity, and soil carbon sequestration (Johnson & DeSimio, 2017).
- Increasing Access to Compost:The project collaborates with the Frontier Food Hub, a nonprofit that distributes locally-grown produce to food pantries in southwest New Mexico. They will deliver Johnson-Su inoculant to producers with whom they already have established relationships, providing increased access to high-quality, living microorganisms which will increase producers’ yield.
- Teaching With Worms: On their first visit at each school, the project team teaches students how to build a worm box, and each classroom receives their own worms to care for. The team then visits the classroom monthly to discuss worm care, the worm life cycle, and worms’ role in composting food waste. At the end of the year, each classroom takes a field trip to the bioreactor site, and leaves their worms in a bioreactor named after their class. The response from schools has been overwhelmingly positive, with teachers asking the team to come back next year and integrating sustainable waste practices into their day-to-day curriculum.
- Youth Combat the Climate Crisis: The project employs local youth aged 15-20 years old to work at the bioreactor site, providing a job that is outdoors, meaningful, and social. While actively combating the climate crisis through composting, young employees benefit from a decent wage and flexible hours. Employees often develop a sense of ownership and pride over the project when they see the positive impact it has on their community’s future.
Lessons Learned
The New Earth Project team discovered the importance of networking and connecting with influential community figures to build a market for their new Johnson-Su inoculant, which is nearly ready for use in 2024, after 12 months of maturation. In preparation for distributing the first batch, the team is working with key stakeholders to promote this novel product to all agricultural producers, from small farmers to large-scale businesses. Current partners include the New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group, the Global Soil Restoration Network, and state- and federal-level representatives in government. Together, this group of stakeholders is working to introduce legislation to provide incentives to agricultural producers to move towards regenerative practices, including applying Johnson-Su inoculant.
The project team quickly came to appreciate the value of educational staff and administrative support when working in schools. Working closely with local schools was a top priority for the project, and they identified two school districts to target. The first step in recruiting school partners involved talking extensively with teachers, principals, and other staff to generate internal support for their education program. This way, when the project team eventually approached the district superintendents, whose approval was necessary to start the program, they could point to a number of staff who were already interested and saw value in the curriculum. Once the curriculum was approved, teachers participated in online trainings prior to the project team visiting classrooms so they were fully prepared to support the project staff during educational activities.
Even as the project evolves, the classroom education aspect consistently draws the most attention, and that interest sustains other components of the work. Because every school has a distinct student body demographic, the project team tailors their educational content so the take home messages remain effective and well-received. For example, at a school in a community where many families’ livelihoods depend on ranching, content would focus less on the environmental impacts of cattle, and more on the agricultural benefits of compost. The project’s education program has not only successfully educated local youth, but it has also left an impression on their teachers, parents, and other adults in the community. Parents in particular have expressed a great amount of interest in the environmental concepts their children enthusiastically bring home from school. Ultimately, educating local children about climate and waste loops also educates their parents, a phenomenon which has also been recently documented by climate researchers (Lawson et al., 2019).
Next Steps
In February 2024, the project will transition out of its two-year grant-funded pilot phase and become a permanent program based in Silver City. Their new, larger space will have room for around 100 Johnson-Su bioreactors, enabling the project to generate significantly more soil inoculant product. Scientists from the Global Soil Restoration Network will lead research and data collection on the bioreactors, contributing to soil restoration technology development with help from youth research assistants. The space in Silver City will also have a dedicated classroom and laboratory, complete with a microscope to allow project staff to carry out their own soil analysis.
As the project moves towards permanence, they aim to eventually fund all operations from compost product sales, rather than relying on grants. Once their first batch of product matures in early 2024, the team will investigate packaging solutions and search for a customer base, both locally in Silver City and across New Mexico. Johnson-Su product is both in-demand and more expensive than traditional compost, making its sales potentially very lucrative. The team hopes to sell to both wholesale customers, including the U.S. Forest Service, and small growers. They envision their product being used across agricultural, urban, and restoration landscapes.
Along with expanding their physical space, the project plans to grow all aspects of their programming. From 2024, they will expand food waste-collection independence to more schools by providing countertop composting stations in cafeterias, and expand their education program to include additional Grant County schools. The team also plans to create satellite Johnson-Su bioreactor filling stations in rural communities surrounding Silver City so residents can collect and compost their school cafeteria waste along with woody and agricultural waste.
The project network is growing through new partnerships with local community organizations. In 2024, the project plans to spread further afield and test the replicability of the model. The team has begun reaching out to other communities in New Mexico and beyond who may want to use their project as a template for large-scale community-based composting. Over the next year, the model will spread to Las Cruces, Santa Fe, and possibly to a community in Mali, Africa. The team is also developing partnerships to apply Johnson-Su inoculant on wild lands, with the U.S. Forest Service, and rangelands, with the Pitchfork Ranch.
Funding Partners
- EJ4Climate: Environmental Justice and Climate Resilience Grant Program, run by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation
- 2811: Platform for social and environmental action
Resources
- New Earth Project website
- New Earth Project Classroom Activities - Freely downloadable curriculum of lesson plans and games
- The New Earth Kids Radio Show on Gila/Mimbres Community Radio
- Global Soil Restoration Network website
- New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). (2011). “Global food losses and food waste - Extent, causes and prevention.” Rome.
- Lawson, D. F., et al. (2019). “Children can foster climate change concern among their parents.” Nature Climate Change 9: 458-462.
- Johnson, D. & DeSimio, P. (2017). “Best management practices: Johnson-Su composting bioreactors.” United States Department of Agriculture.
- Sharma, P. et al. (2021). “Sustainable processing of food waste for production of bio-based products for circular bioeconomy.” Bioresource Technology 325: 124684.
Contacts
- Carol Ann Fugagli, Executive Director, Upper Gila Watershed Alliance: director@ugwa.org
- Mike Fugagli, Upper Gila Watershed Alliance
- Nan Franzblou, Upper Gila Watershed Alliance
CART Lead Author
Erin Connolly, Drought Learning Network (DLN) Case Study Author
Suggested Citation
Connolly, E. E. (2024). “The New Earth Project: Youth-powered climate solutions through food waste reduction.” CART. Retrieved from https://www.fws.gov/project/nature-based-solutions-new-earth-project-pilot.