@Joannie - the Italian veggie farmers we had as neighbours: husband worked for the council and 'sotto voce' his wife explained to me one day, that her husband got 'all that stuff' 'from work' - it was liquid waste - I saw it in their driveway and she felt she needed to explain - but it was illegal. They produced totally amazing vegetables - and good crops - they themselves ate from their garden, so I saw no harm in it.
I still remember - when out in the country with my relatives - the 'Mistwagen' (waste waggons) collecting the contents of the drop toilets as well as stable droppings from pig sties - on information given by my mother - this went onto the fields, too.
Every farmer whose cows (fewer in number than todays dairy herds) as well as draft animals were kept in stalls in an enclosure within his living compound, amassed a huge heap of dung in the middle of the yard - (no it doesn't smell bad, rather nice and earthy) - and that was regularly taken to the fields as fertiliser.
