GUANO FOR FARMING: Haiti can use this fertilizer.

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WHAT IS GUANO YOU MAY ASK:

Any excrement from birds, seals, or bats, with value to humans as fertilizer, may be referred to as guano.

The term originated in Peru, to differentiate useless bird droppings from the nutrient-rich waste of cormorants, pelicans, and other sea birds.

The word's useage has since been widened to include, especially, the mixture of remains and excrement of bats that collect on the floor of caves.

Hundreds of years ago, farmers in South America harvested the white piles of guano from shorelines and islands to use as crop fertilizer.

After contact with Europe, the export of guano became economically beneficial for the Colonizers.

Bat guano also has a long agricultural and economic history in Cuba. Even today, guano from bat caves in the United States, Asia, Cuba, and South America is marketed as the best organic fertilizer available.

The reason guano is an ideal fertilizer is its chemical make up. Because the guano exists deep inside caves, it's protected from sunlight and wind, and doesn't break down as quickly as other organic matter.

Rich in nitrogen and phosphorous, it provides important chemicals for crops.

It also has beneficial fungi and bacteria, which act as a natural fungicide to protect plants from disease.

Export of guano as a fertilizer remains a key resource for organic farming, especially in the United States.

A farmer can request a certain color, species of bat, or place of origin, in addition to chemical composition.

Bat guano is richer than fowl or seal guano, and more plentiful.

It is also much richer than horse or cow manure.

Aside from agriculture, the entire ecology of bats' primary habitat, caves, depends on guano-covered ground.

Many invertebrate cave dwellers utilize the guano as home and food. Bats eat insects, which balances their population.

This habitat has been somewhat impacted by humans disrupting caves.

Wilgeens Rosenberg, March 21 2008, 5:20 PM

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