To achieve SDG 2, biomass and nutrient recycling must be ensured: Mohammed Ataur Rahman

The human body contains as many as 61 chemical elements out of 94 naturally occurring known elements although little known about the remaining 33 elements. However, all these chemicals are needed for normal growth and development of the human body.
Most of the elements needed for life are relatively common in the earth’s crust. Human being used to get these elements from the soil, water, and air through plants, animals, and microbes and the ultimate media is soil. Unfortunately, conventional industrial agriculture still remains within the circle of 23 macro and micronutrients. However, in Bangladesh context the situation is very hopeless, the farmers use only the macro elements like nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium, calcium, and some microelement viz zinc, manganese, boron, and molybdenum as suggested by the field officers or fertilizer companies. They seldom think for other nutrients which can be obtained from recycling biomass of plants animals including human being. This resulted in an acute nutrient crisis in the human body. As a result, malnutrition and diseases like diabetes, liver and kidney diseases, stroke, cancer, pregnancy disorder, early aging, and sexual disabilities, etc. are becoming more common although nowadays people are consuming more vegetables and proteins. This is, of course, due to insufficient, imbalanced and nutrient-poor diet. But we can get the nutrients from recycling biomass including plants, animals, and human beings.
Millions of tons of green garbage is being dumped for landfilling every year, which could supplement the need for other nutrients to satisfy the nutrient demands for optimum growth of the plants and animals. Moreover, human litter remains in the septic tank years together, sometimes overflows to the sewerage and drains into the rivers or lakes most of which get contaminated with industrial effluents although these human litters are great sources of nutrients. To achieve the target SDG 2 biomass recycling is an important criterion for Sustainable Agriculture; without ensuring it we will not be able to achieve SDG 2 within the target period. The government should immediately look into this. Every year the farmers are using huge chemical fertilizers as per recommendation for each crop but where these chemicals go? Certainly, uptake by the plants, adsorb by the soil-minerals and some may leach to the water. Leaching into the water gets worsen during flood and waterlogging situations. Since huge biomass drains to water bodies like rivers, canals, beels, and haors, etc., these must-have to be pollution-free to get the benefits from the aquatic resources viz. fishes, mollusks, crabs and prawns and of course planktons.
Therefore, to get the required nutrients, there are no alternatives other than biomass recycling, and nature is designed for it. We must think deeply and refrain from greediness and so-called technology business for earning money exploiting others.