Household biomass ash as a fertilizer to sustainability improve soil nutrition to enhance rice yields

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This proposal is to improve the lot of the subsistence farmers of Bangladesh by giving them sustainably higher yields of rice, through recycling of agronomic and natural environment wastes, primarily as ash from household cooking fuels. Bangladesh agronomic soils are over cropped as they tend to be harvested twice a year, with the heavily application of NPKS and Zn fertilizers to maintaining this cropping intensity. This leaves the nutrients not fertilized (B, Ca, Co, Cu, Mg, Mo, Ni, Se, Si) being removed year on year in the crop. In Bangladesh rice straw is fed to cattle and the resulting cattle dung used for fuel in the home. Only sporadically is household ash added back to land. Domestic fuel is also collected from the interspersed semi-natural forests and orchards that typify the Bangladesh agronomic landscape, with this ash providing additional mineral resource. Along with composted household waste, rice-mill waste, animal bedding and horticultural crop waste, there are many nutrient rich waste streams to be tapped with respect to use as paddy field fertilizers. If these streams are redirected back to the land enhanced yields of rice can be obtained sustainably, giving more wealth and resources to subsistence rice farmers throughout Bangladesh. This recycling approach developed for Bangladesh can be used throughout the world, adapting to local rice growing management and societal practices. The proposal has four stages. The first is to characterize the nutrient content and quantity of waste streams flowing through Bangladeshi substance rice farming villages. The second task is to maximize ways in which to redirect these waste-streams back to the land. The third is to trial, through both wet and dry season rice cultivation, across 20 geographically separated Bangladeshi villages, the utility of these wastes for building up soil health and increasing rice yields, testing common Bangladeshi rice cultivars. Fourthly, and finally, a management protocol will be derived for dissemination across the rice farms of Bangladesh to educate what are the best ways to sustainably manage paddy fields using local recycled resources.