Project Overview
Information Products
Commodities
- Vegetables: eggplant, sweet corn
- Animals: fish
Practices
- Crop Production: organic fertilizers
- Education and Training: technical assistance
- Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns, feasibility study, agricultural finance
- Production Systems: holistic management
- Sustainable Communities: sustainability measures
Proposal summary:
Guam farmers traditionally pay high costs for fertilizer because of high shipping costs and a high markup at retail outlets, increasing prices for local produce and reducing profits for local farmers. At the same time, the soil conditions in northern Guam, because of the porous nature of the ground and the thin layer of topsoil, require more fertilization than farms in southern Guam. This group project funded as a Western SARE Farmer/Rancher grant seeks to address these issues by testing the viability of recycling fish waste developed into fish emulsion fertilizer and applied on sweet corn, eggplant and other selected crops on three farms comprising 60 acres. The Guam fishing industry creates considerable waste, yet Guam’s only landfill is overfilled. This project will teach the producers how to make fertilizer from the waste, diverting a waste stream from the landfill and providing a potentially economical fertilizer for their crops.