Syntropic Agroforestry, No-Smell Pig Pens, and KNF Cannabis
This office hours ran outdoors during a seven-day KNF training on Drake's Hawaiʻi farm. Daniel opened with an I Ching reading on The Marrying Maiden, then talked about his own project, Ishmael's Forest Farming, named for Daniel Quinn's book about a gorilla teaching a man the laws of nature.
Daniel described quarantining alone in a Big Island volcano cabin during COVID, without power or running water, which pushed him into farming. Drake told the story of planting a public garden downtown in Hilo after Occupy Wall Street in 2011, so the community itself kept weeds and herbicide off the land.
Pedro, visiting from Brazil, is combining syntropic agroforestry (corn, beans, cassava, and fruit trees) with KNF to boost the medicinal potency of plants grown for essential oils. Ben, a cancer survivor from Phoenix, is using KNF inputs to grow organic cannabis in desert soil. Both said KNF-grown cannabis raises terpene content and plant density and makes pests easier to control.
Students shared favorite parts of the week: turning IMO piles, making fermented plant juice (and realizing they'd been using too much sugar), and seeing a visible difference between Drake's IMO-fed pasture and the neighbor's. Someone mentioned a 200-pig pen on Maui run with KNF that has no smell at all.
Questions answered
- 7:49 Why did Daniel name his farm Ishmael's Forest Farming? — He named it after the book Ishmael, since he doesn't see the land or food as his alone but shared with others.
- 17:28 Can off-grid living ever be fully independent? — Not fully; even solar panels come from industrial supply chains, so Drake sees KNF as a transition technology, not a total escape.
- 20:58 How did COVID change Daniel's path into farming? — Two weeks quarantined off-grid in a Big Island volcano cabin, without power or running water, sparked his shift into natural farming.
- 24:33 What came out of planting food during Occupy Wall Street? — Drake planted a public garden downtown in Hilo in 2011, and community upkeep kept the space clean without needing herbicide.
- 38:33 How does syntropic agroforestry pair with KNF? — Agroforestry builds soil life from above ground while KNF feeds the soil below, together raising the potency of medicinal plants.
- 41:52 How is a cancer survivor using KNF to grow medicine? — Ben in Phoenix grows organic cannabis with KNF inputs, treating it as using the earth to heal the earth.
- 43:39 What changes when cannabis is grown with KNF inputs? — Growers reported higher terpene content, denser flowers, and pests are easier to control once the soil is alive.
- 51:23 What was the class's favorite hands-on lesson of the week? — Making IMO3 and fermented plant juice, and realizing they had been using far too much sugar in their ferments.
- 54:42 Does KNF actually change how land looks compared to untreated ground? — Students saw a visible difference between Drake's IMO-fed pasture and the neighbor's pasture right next door.
- 55:39 What does a KNF-run pig or chicken pen smell like? — A well-run pen has zero smell and reportedly smells more like a healthy forest floor.
- 57:47 What will Leah take back to California from the training? — She plans to build a permaculture food forest and flower farm and grow a KNF community around the Bay Area.
KNF Office Hours is a free live Q&A every Sunday at 9 AM HST. Bring your question to pureknf.org/learn/questions or join live.
In this episode
- 0:00 Countdown
- 1:49 Intro and welcome
- 2:28 I Ching reading: The Marrying Maiden
- 6:24 Week-long KNF training on the Hawaiʻi farm
- 7:49 Ishmael's Forest Farming and lessons from the book Ishmael
- 17:28 The Great Simplification and off-grid limits
- 20:58 COVID quarantine sparks a shift to farming
- 24:33 Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Hilo public gardens
- 30:20 Spreading KNF and hope worldwide
- 32:24 Living in joy without money, connected to land
- 38:33 Syntropic agroforestry plus KNF as potent medicine
- 41:52 A cancer survivor grows medicine with KNF
- 43:39 KNF on cannabis makes healthier plants
- 46:23 "KNF brought hope into my heart"
- 51:23 Favorite training moment: IMO3 and ferments
- 53:48 Favorite training moment: hands-on mistakes
- 54:42 Favorite training moment: IMO vs neighbor's pasture
- 57:47 Favorite training moment: bringing KNF to California
- 58:22 Closing thanks and farewells
Transcript
Auto-transcribed with Whisper. Click any timestamp to play from there.
2:00 Aloha. greetings yeah just checking in if you can hear us i think you can hear me hello i'm daniel and welcome to a special hour or special episode of um korean natural farming office hours outdoor
2:46 edition yep so uh let's start off with a little bit of eaching but I think maybe Brad Daniel here will read it for us I'd love to so today's verse is called The Marrying Maiden in relationships desires lead to misfortune behave with discipline and balance Kuei Mei is concerned with the guidelines for the proper conduct of relationships whether they be social romantic or work related the image here is of thunder rolling the surface of a lake and it suggests
3:37 that relationships can be disturbing to our peace of mind unless they are established and govern under proper principles the nature of relationships is that they lead us into the desire state we begin to desire another, desire recognition, desire retribution, desire a particular outcome in a given situation. All of these desires lead us away from the equanimity that we aim to maintain as students of the I Ching. The hexagram often comes as a sign that you're in danger of sacrificing your composure in an effort to affect a relationship.
4:16 when someone does not treat you as you would like you are faced with a choice as to what to do while it may be tempting to abandon the relationship in anger or act aggressively to produce a result neither of these is consistent with proper principles you are counseled instead to return to inner independence acceptance
6:16 And we're fixing up the video here. So, yeah, so, you know, the I Ching reading here, Kui Mei relationships this week, building a whole lot of relationships here. And, you know, have a class here. And that's why Daniel's here at the K&F farm here to learn. And we've been going through, you know, pretty much everything so far, right? it's you know as fast as time will permit going through all the different recipes and started in imo3 propagation made some fermented plant juices started with
7:05 our oriental herbal nutrients and every day we've ended with a nice little group session readings of the I Ching and Drake has been sharing some thought-provoking questions for our group. That's been really an enjoyable time. This verse is actually perfect for our experience here because we've been building new relationships in a very fruitful and productive way. Everyone's been very kind and open to each other's perspectives yeah so we're here we got uh seven students this uh this class and um daniel's been living here on
7:57 the island for a while so and you named your farm that you're working on uh ishmael farm right yep ishmael's forest farming is what i call my uh farming project my farming journey was inspired by the book Ishmael so I wanted to dedicate it to that idea, the concepts shared in that book. I also don't feel like it's my farm necessarily. I don't feel like the land or the food necessarily belongs to me. It's something to be shared with my brothers and sisters and so yeah that's why I gave it that name. So, you know, I was just rereading Ishmael
8:45 because I know that that's what you named your farm after. And I remember listening to that book as an audio book. And it's about like this gorilla that informs man about his just contemplations of like captivity. Exactly. Yeah, a telepathic gorilla communicating with this human student But yeah, a lot of the concepts are about our cultural mythologies The mythology of man How man was created to rule earth It does point out a lot of the Christian parables of creationism
9:31 And how they kind of got lost in translation I mean, a lot of, at least in the Western world, a lot of our culture is informed by Christian mythology, you know. Partly that is the most prominent religion, but even the way non-religious people live their lives, still kind of dominating, living beyond nature. And I find that our culture has kind of divorced itself from nature. But I also believe that there are these inherent laws of nature that can't be ignored. They're very hard to define, but there is some presence of that.
10:15 We don't ignore the laws of physics, but we choose as mankind to ignore a lot of the laws of nature. And yeah, that's always just been a fascinating premise to me in what our role is and what our mythology that we've created is. so you named your farm after this like because you see like what do you what do you want to express with it what i'm what i'm looking to express or what i'm feeling the desire to express is to demonstrate a way to live more alongside nature one with nature reunited with nature
11:02 that's kind of what my life path has gone down is to become a part of nature again and not above it and beyond it and controlling of it playing my part as a steward of the earth I believe that on a higher level that's partly what man is here to do we are one of the few beings that have this conscious mind to make decisions about what we do And, yeah, I just want to set an example of, you know, this reuniting with nature, being a steward of the earth instead of taking from it.
11:47 And, you know, you've been doing KNF since like almost a year. Over a year now. Yeah. Yeah, and for me, KNF has been a huge inspiration. I've been into farming for a little over a year, but learning about KNF, it's like sparked a passion for me for like how I want to farm and how I want to cultivate the land. And ever since I learned about it, I've been putting it to practice and honing in my skills. Yeah, I like it because you don't, you know, there's minimal outside inputs, you know, a little bit of sugar here, a little bit of herb.
12:28 that maybe I'm not growing, but for the most part, I'm taking things from the land and putting it back into the land. I'm not relying on purchasing fertilizers in a bag or a bottle and spending outrageous amounts of money because that's a hindrance for a lot of us. But yeah, fertilizing my plants with FPJ, using lab as a fungicide and as a protector for the plants, all these things have been have been huge compared to what I've seen and even experienced with conventional farming tactics experiencing a bit of conventional farming I see that it's very much at war with nature
13:11 and I don't want to be at war with nature it makes my life more difficult and I'm also deteriorating the land of the process yeah yeah i mean that's you know when i found knf i see that you know um the challenges that are arising for us in uh like like nature and making you know the food nutrient density diminishing in in you know largely available food you were saying it's like food-like products? Oh, yeah. Most of what most humans eat, most quote-unquote civilized humans eat
13:56 is food-like products if you look at what's sold in the store. But if you look at conventional farming, it's the same thing. You know, these chemical fertilizers, it's not natural food for these plants. It's a food-like product. So we're feeding ourselves plants that didn't even receive proper nutrition themselves. and therefore are less nutritious for us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, don't shop in the center of the grocery store. Yeah. Yeah, if you go on a diet, they're like, just shop on the outside of the store. They're going down the aisles.
14:31 And the reason for that is because the aisles are all full of junk, you know, but that's, those are staples in a lot of diets, all these processed foods that are made with, you know, gmo products and even even if it's non-gmo just the processed food like your body's not used to accepting that you're not receiving the right nutrients out of it and they're void of nutrients you know in a lot of ways it's you're you're getting like we get like conventional farmers throw out uh nitrogen potassium phosphorus that we're just getting thrown protein carbs and fat
15:06 but we're missing a lot of the micronutrients you know yeah i'd never even contemplated that idea of that like similar like it's it's not these complete things it's these things that we just like combined and then put out there and you know it's like oh this is what's essential for life when it's so nature kind of actually had was closer to what's like essential for life going on yeah yeah yeah yeah feel a lot of that i'm just the you know this here people around the world finding these solutions feeling the same liberation and you're you're about to have a baby
15:50 and be like you know passing this on so it's like even more like you know do you feel your responsibility growing now absolutely that was the biggest wake of call i mean since i've been farming i've been jumping around from farm to farm helping out friends and whatnot but yeah now it's like okay i want to first of all have a safe stable place for my family but also pass down this knowledge you know a lot of i've been listening to some podcasts and a lot of conventional farmers practice such things because it's what's been passed down to them
16:23 where I have the opportunity to pass down this knowledge of natural farming, regenerative farming, eating natural food. It's conventionally farmed foods that are lacking in nutrition. So yeah, there's definitely a big wake-up call, but in addition to teaching my child and my family, I also want to teach anyone who's willing to listen. I definitely intend my farm to be a teaching farm as well both online and in person because I want to share I've always been in leadership roles in every job I've had and what not so if I can be a leader in a way that will benefit people's lives
17:09 benefit the planet and I'm not out there to say to the planet the planet is going to be fine with or without us but I do want to do my part to sustain life, you know, sustain my life, my family's life, my community's life. Yeah, it's like the core thing. I mean, yeah, passing that on to your kids. I mean, what could be more? I mean, for us too, it's like, I feel like this transitions definitely in our lifetime. you were discussing with us with Leah last night about the great simplification the Nate Hagans I'm a little less familiar
17:55 with him but I haven't gone to listen to him yet but yeah well the idea is that basically like you know the way we're living if you try to switch over to like other um like like electric cars or things that you kind of have to we have to de-energize a little bit down to this and seeing natural farming and how you're wanting to live like off-grid and which you know it still still requires a lot of resources like if you're off-grid but you have solar then it's like oh those solar panels are developed from straight up like not off-grid systems so so there's there's
18:42 always like this balance in our in our current world you know but but i but i see i see natural farming fitting in in a way where it's a real nice like transition technology yeah yeah absolutely i mean i i don't this i can't necessarily say i'm going to divorce myself completely from conventional living and, you know, the quote-unquote real world, but what can I do to bring myself closer to the wind, to bring myself more connected to nature? And yeah, but, you know, I also, in the back of my mind, is like, what happens if the boats stop coming? What happens
19:23 if, you know, we don't, I can't buy solar panels, you know? I believe that these things are, you know we never anticipating having a pandemic at least I never thought I would live through a pandemic and the whole world shut down for two weeks so I uh I very much part of me is preparing for you know even if I don't have solar panels can I still survive you know by feeding myself and providing for my family at least the bare essential nutrients to eat in a structure a roof over our head, you know. That was a big wake-up call for me personally was the pandemic and watching
20:03 the food run out of the stores. And living in Hawaii, like, we rely on boats to bring in a lot of food. I try and shop from local farmers as much as I can, but I do record times, you know, a lot of things. The Kodiak cake pancakes I buy, you know, those are coming on a boat. I can live without pancakes, of course, but nonetheless. Despairly. Yeah, that whole idea of like food sovereignty and not relying on the higher powers to provide you your food, even if you live on mainland or anywhere in the world, you know, it's so heavily reliant on transportation.
20:46 And all that system running smoothly. And I think COVID showed us that it's a little more volatile than we all choose to acknowledge. Right, just the interruption and the suddenness of that to go from like, it's like we're just slamming on the brakes and actually even almost hitting a wall. That's how fast we stopped and then the world kind of shifted a lot of ways. But you were doing this prior to that before? No, it wasn't until COVID happened that I got into farming. I visited a friend on Big Island and he was living in a volcano off-grid, cultivating
21:32 these little permaculture gardens and whatnot but living without electricity without running water and back then in Hawaii you had to quarantine for like two weeks strict, they were calling me every day and they were sending people to jail for violating quarantine so I stayed put in my friend's little cabin in a volcano for two weeks But yeah, it was the most happy, peaceful experience of my life.
21:59 Like living without Wi-Fi, living without electricity, filling up a jug of water and pouring it on my head to shower, you know, and then getting my hands in the dirt and like cultivating these garden beds and planting beans and tomatoes and pineapples and building garden beds from things that were found on the property without any outside input. taking you know weaving sticks together and using ferns as mulch digging soil out from the one little patch of soil that was on this property and volcano and then as i was living in massachusetts
22:37 at the time and the moment i got back to massachusetts i knew i couldn't stay there i wasn't sure i was coming back here but all the signs pointed to to making the move out this way and then once I got here I landed on a farm and been farming ever since but yeah COVID was definitely that wake up call this this uh way of life isn't sustainable for me and it ignited a passion along with like a spiritual awakening reading Ishmael reading Siddhartha reading the alchemist during COVID I read tons of books and those all kind of also shifted my perspective on life and what was important.
23:22 Yeah, amazing how powerful those like experiences and you're able to see of like little like, you know, see it for what it is, you know, and really realize like make this change. That's that's real admirable. and I recognize that everybody in my project of Ishmael's Forest Farming is not to convince everybody to drop their life and go move to the mountains but do what you can you know with what you have so many people are growing grass and have all these lawns where you could be growing plant a fruit tree, plant an avocado tree build a little garden bed and use these KNF inputs
24:06 to feed your plants And even if you don't fully divorce yourself from the grocery store, like even if you make your family a kale salad once a week from your garden, that's really cool. Or to plant an avocado tree that'll feed your family for a whole generation, you know, I think that's, I want to encourage people to do that, you know, because we all have the resources. It's just the knowledge and the desire and seeing the value in it, you know. so i did a project in 2011 uh like occupy wall street time where i saw a bunch of people
24:42 protesting and just like and you know thought well our energy here would be better spent planting food in the ground and letting the food occupy for us and so i i had permission and we planted downtown bayfront and so using using like our public spaces like around here like a lot of us a lot of people will say oh you know i want the county not to use roundup at the park but then who's at the park like keeping it up and beautifying it and making it happen and like if we engage more in our community instead of thinking like oh the county should
25:21 do this like some and it's like as community it's like our park you know and then then all sudden there's not roundup there because it's so beautiful and so well maintained by us that there's no need for roundup roundup would only make it like more ugly versus you know if there's weeds everywhere people you know they want to keep those spaces nice and clean right and and that's you know people cultivating and when when you mention it of people with you know sometimes i hear from people like oh i don't have land but then how many people have yards that you could
25:53 say hey you know i'm gonna try and get most of the people on this block to to say i can farm this area give them some food all of a sudden now i got you know a huge you know quarter acre you know i'm just farming people's yards around and everyone benefits and those people then get food and you can teach them and right right there you're like urban farming just by like making friends with a few neighbors and once you see your neighbor do it you're like oh i could do it too you know and then you guys can trade veggies and that's the other thing that drew me to big island is
26:28 there's a lot of you know trade amongst the community for you know have mangoes you have bananas like bring over my mangoes share your bananas and that's such a more beautiful way to exchange and receive your food and slave away at a desk to earn your credits to take them to the store where all the food's locked up yeah it's kind of like an indirect lifestyle versus like you're going more direct to be like cut out the middle man yeah even doing what you can with your yard You know, I saw a video. I grew up in Orlando, Florida, which is my youth.
27:16 And recently I saw a video, a man in Orlando built an urban garden on his property, and he sustained himself for one year off his, like, quarter acre of land that he just built. You know, food for it, a mini food forest on that. It looks like a big mess of weeds, you know, when you drive by it. You know, the homeowners association wasn't stoked about it, but, you know, it was a plot of land filled with food. Well, that's the thing, though. Like, why is our homeowner association, like, not stoked?
27:52 You know, like, this is, like, as we engage more, like, who are those people and where does their food come from? Like, that's the kind of questions we got to ask when we're like, electing people to be like a homeowner associate or like a representative on any level is like, hey, you know, do you understand this system? You know, because like, why would they be upset? They could be like, oh, you know, yeah, that's, that's his jam. He's doing this. Like, we're kind of actually proud of him.
28:19 I understand it, you know, in a lot of these communities, the homeowners associations actually prohibit people from planting fruit trees in like, in their yards. And I think part of it, I mean, especially if you have your whole yard as a garden, and it looks like a big mess. It's like, from a beautification standpoint, you know, they want everything to look uniform and look how they want it. And I mean, yeah, these people are usually elected to their positions or earn their titles, but it's a cultural norm, you know, where these organizations are set to maintain order in the community.
29:05 But in a huge way, it's hindering people from potentially providing for themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I see that, but then I also see a lot of other changes. is like if you go to target for instance like the advertisements on the walls are changing to like different body types whereas before it's all like skinny you know like certain like you know like almost like a barbie um figure and now it's more like normal people right like it's not like this super high ideal and so like as we're shifting our consciousness this way of like you know it's
29:43 just like we're people and then also shifting towards like you know why why is it still weedy and like bad right like these same other like all are like almost normalizing more of these things because this ideal that we have is is as unhealthy as like not not to say any barbie looking people are unhealthy but but for everybody to aspire to that is unhealthy for us you know because not everyone's that that you know has those things right and so it's like for our yards too it's like we have this like kind of unhealthy for everyone to have like you know this like barbie yard
30:22 right so we're shifting like i noticed like the mass culture is like it's shifting on that spectrum so also this this shift here like maybe we're at a critical point where people are like ready for like the new sexy is like the permaculture yard yeah where it's like all you know as a man all the ladies are like oh daniel you know because and then and then you're looking at and the ladies you're valuing are like they're in the permaculture too and you're like oh my partner i don't know her name but but that that becomes our new sexy our new like like
31:04 thing we're putting into our consciousness is like this what's beautiful like we're we're we're opening our our range of beauty here here in america at least at target right where's targets muddy or messy um permaculture above their vegetable section right like that that's the new trend we should we should hit up targets um leadership and be like
31:29 Yeah, no, and I, that's what I, I hope for is, is, is this cultural shift because culture is shifting. It's hard to tell in what direction, especially when you watch the news and stuff, which I don't very often, but yeah, that's, you know, that's my biggest inspiration to do these, this project and to work with you and learn from you and is to, you know, practice what I preach and I have this vision and, you know, to, to demonstrate what I preach. it you know but i haven't been doing it very long i found this on my own nobody said hey you should
32:06 try this out but like you know it's possible for anyone to pick it up and run with it and having these conversations is important to further along our culture and empower this movement and and you as a as a young guy man like i think you're starting to live like an attractive lifestyle of what you're doing so more people will pay attention and be like oh yeah what's he doing yeah like look how good he's feeling you know you're mentioning like your whole like self is more in a in a better space now right absolutely yeah yeah i've never had such
32:49 joy in my life and I went through a phase here on Big Island where I was straight up broke for three months I didn't have a dollar to my name but I was living in the forest farming the land I have never had no complaints I was supremely happy you know I was blessed that friends helped me fill up my gas tank here and there so I can get around but you know I didn't have money to go to downtown have beers and listen to music or like you know I don't I'm a pretty simple guy that's you know, at that time, that was my only exciting adventure that I could really
33:22 spending money on. But yeah, you know, to, to live with essentially, you know, the main resource that most of us, you know, depend on. But to be reconnected with the land, to be able to feed myself and cultivate food and fruit, you know, like walking around the forest and harvesting like 12 lily koi a day, passion fruit, mangoes and all this stuff and like just to be in the forest and it was such a unique experience because some of the most depressed times of my life were when I was broke so it was such a breakthrough to like live without money for a few months and then but have this joy
34:05 you know you'll owe nothing but you'll be happy yeah yeah maybe that is the breakthrough maybe that is the great reset i mean you you reset yourself this way and now like see this and i don't know so i go through some dark times too but when like this class is happening and there's seven people that are just like tuned in And I know that what we're doing here is going to like stick with everybody and that they're like, you know, you'll be a different person to go back to like understand solutions for these things and spreading it.
34:53 So it brings me a lot of hope during this time of like an upliftment to, you know, be here teaching, especially, you know, everyone that's really wanting it. and you know i was just at hfuu convention and just to be around people that are like uplifted and i was seeing how much the korean natural farming had changed that landscape on maui they had a 200 pig no smell pig pen and you know they had they were using knf and like a lot of their different um practices there like like on their different plants from all kinds of things
35:30 so understanding like you know yeah like doing the work but then also sharing it also has a lot of a lot of joy and then to see like here on this office hours who's who's here got Mitchell what's up Mitchell Horace how is it have faith um Cecily the goofman hey the goofman's awesome by the way he helped me clean up KNF support the other day um Jake Bass so all these people and Taumato Aulia Makahiki so all these
36:16 all these folks tuning in and then I asked I asked the class the other day I was like, who's listening to Office Hour? And like most people raise their hand, right? And so seeing this grow, like this also gives me hope, you know, like doing this, seeing this. Absolutely. Yeah, this class, this course this week has been really inspiring to meet people from all around the world, you know, people here from Nova Scotia, Brazil, Louisiana, you know. In fact, the majority of people are from Off Island, which i think is really cool and then also tuning into office hours in the past and you know seeing
36:54 people from all over the world it's really cool to see this community flourishing and growing and the diversity and how it's out there it is growing yeah i mean yeah it's hopeful it's good I mean, it's like, yeah, you know that Ishmael, like my recollection of that is this one scene where a train's flying off a cliff and the people inside are like, oh, it's so peaceful. Oh, it's so great because they can't really see outside to realize they derailed and they're barreling down a cliff. and then you know i feel like to a degree we're like just waking up to be like oh this you know
37:38 this part of our lives with you know monetary system everything coming up it's just like learning the basics which i consider korean natural farming pretty basic but it's something that's been forgotten right if i if i always shop at the grocery store and I don't even think, but like the basics. Cool. Yeah, so the video's cut. I don't know what happened to the camera, but I tried to bring it out here. But you guys, why don't you grab a chair and just we can jump in here.
38:25 you can try and fix the camera it's this yeah this here um but yeah so um so sitting here with me right now we got uh pedro okay you're coming in from so i'm from brazil uh i tried to come here two two years ago and i was um yeah i wasn't able to because of the pandemic and um i'm a farmer in I research agroforestry and centropic farming basically we plant yeah the first placenta are corn beans cassava and that along with fruit trees and nowadays we're focusing more on medicinal
39:16 plants for essential oil extraction. So the reason I'm starting KNF is to increase medicinal content of these medicinal plants so we have better essential oils. Yeah, soil power land is very degraded so it was a pasture before and heavy rains now it's just pure sand so yeah so your your solutions here like your reason for being here your solutions you want to bring back like what do you want to see happen in Brazil I want the land to thrive and like yeah get this knowledge
40:02 for people like translate the knowledge and teach this back in Brazil so people are more resilient and have more tools to work. Yeah, far away from the chemistry industry. And are there other folks there that are kind of on board with your ideology, the way you're doing things? Yeah, so a lot of cannabis growers are starting to like research and go into KNF, But also people in the agroforestry are starting to tune into it. So, yeah, it's going to be a revolution. Yeah, agroforestry is already a very complex science.
40:49 And it's like from the soil above. And K&F goes right into the soil below, right? So I think it's the perfect marriage. Right, right, right. those concepts coming together and people getting this critical understanding of really how to bring the the earth to life yeah yeah agroforestry it like tries to focus in on the soil microbiology in a different way so it's like you start covering the soil and mulch it and these microorganisms are already going to be there right but i think knf brings a lot of diversity and like just the potency of medicine from plants and i think it tunes it just like
41:38 like a lot of notches yeah yeah i think it's sound it's great to be yeah so so we're also we're also sitting here with ben and he's he's based right now out of the american southwest that area and represents our our desert man good morning everyone good afternoon all around the world K&F gurus. Yes, I'm from Phoenix, Arizona, trying to take this Korean natural farming to back there to, you know, I have a little house, a little slice of land.
42:23 Just, yeah, ice cream cone. There you go, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ice cream cone. New to the office hours. I'm a viewer, first time, you know, experiencer. But, yeah, just trying to, Obviously the desert's very dry, you know, trying to get the soil to stay and hold moisture and figure out ways to best suit that. And obviously me being personally, I'm a cancer survivor and grow cannabis and trying to find the best possible organic way to grow the best medicine I can. And this is great because you're not us. We're not healing. We're using the earth to heal the earth in a sense.
43:04 So instead of us trying to manufacture ways to heal the earth, we're using the earth in itself to heal itself. So, rock on. Rock on. Does anybody have any questions for me about the desert southwest? Awesome. Thank you for the super chat. so let me i mean so you guys you guys too both interested in uh using or have people that use the canna for that cannabis what what have you guys seen change in that realm
43:53 so yeah i i think people are are starting to realize the terpene content goes up and and flowers smell so much better. They're denser, and it's really easier to control pests and everything when you have a living soil that is thriving, right? And yeah, I came into contact with KNF because a friend of mine lives in Italy. She's a cannabis grower, and she would like post pictures of her cannabis plants like dude what do you do with your plants they're like i haven't i have never seen like such healthy plants oh yeah this is korean natural
44:42 farming you should check into that i'm like what i've never heard of this it's like permaculture biochar composting like like this whole sets of concepts but i've never heard of knf and um yeah when when i started looking into it i was like this is it man i have to do this so i started making solutions and yeah getting everybody to make solutions like all my friends they're like initiated uh natural farmers as well yeah so it really makes a difference right i mean like like it's sort of top shelf in a certain sense
45:28 hey you got it back video hey it's now so pedro pedro raise your hand Pedro Dan Brittany and so let's yeah so have you also grown cannabis with natural farming so are we going into What brought me here? What solution do you have to offer with what you're doing here?
46:15 So for me it's more of once I found KNF, it was the first time after traveling for years and years studying permaculture and sustainable practices and always hearing the phrase, well, it depends, and it depends. And it can be a bit intimidating, that phrase, for people who are trying to come into this new space that they're curious about, especially with the state of the world that we're in. I started working with an agronomist out in California who was the head agronomist for California Hip Association.
46:55 and he was making all these wild ferments and I was like what's going on here you know we were making them on large scale um come to the end of it um I was I was trying to put into contracts you know these weird contracts and I'm like no this doesn't settle with me you know I know I was trying to study under him and the formulations were never the same and so then I started researching myself and it led me to k and f and i i started going crazy over it and talking about it my wife was like we have to get you to a class you know you need to go to a class this is your
47:36 jam because it's like the first time out of all these years that i was starting to feel hope in my heart not not only on what can we do for the for the planet and for our own personal plants but what does that do for the people and understanding that you know in California I had a microgreens business and my focus was that was to actually start to put out high nutritional profile foods that people can take in that were easy to grow that wasn't really deterring for them they can flip a crop in 10 days but also to understand that nutritional
48:19 profile and the bioavailability of what it is that they were getting but then on the next level of like what is that doing to the microbiome and what is our microbiome doing to the brain you know and and on that level to see the concepts in k and f be able to be applied on that human health level as well, I feel like on all organism sides, we can just all evolve through this methodology, which my motto on my business, my slogan was nurture through nature. Because out of traveling and going to all these farms and meeting all these people, you really start to understand that
49:08 by going back to nature is when you actually start to nurture the body and the mind, which then gets us to inspire other people, right? Because we start to walk differently on this planet. And somebody's like, what's so shiny about you, you know? And that curiosity is what brings people in, right? When we can show them something or they experience something different that they've never felt before, they start to ask questions. and it's like dude come over let's make some inputs you know let's stick our feet in some soil
49:43 and like breaking down those concepts right so i'm excited i'm excited to be able to after being years in california going back to my home base in louisiana being south of i-10 in in a space that they call cancer alley to be able to come back and bring some of these concepts on both the farming side but also with the people that I love you know and and really start to see those those evolutionary shifts in the people and in the in the plants you know so um I'm just stoked for the future man you know I I'm really I'm really so
50:29 hopeful and and really this concept of like all aspects of it is bringing in this love and and through the disconnection of all the commercialization that we've seen i really feel like that's what we're lacking the most is this connection this love right and when we can really start to jam in and see the hope for our our future it creates a different social setting we start to interact differently but also the micros under our feet are interacting differently you know it's and above you know so yeah i'm just really looking forward to the future yeah
51:09 so here you know our experiences so far we've been going through some of the solutions let's Maybe just share with folks what's been your favorite part about being here so far. Everything. I know making IM3 and with your mom today in the morning making a can of food was awesome. Yeah, you realize stuff like, oh, I've been using too much sugar in my foods. I don't have to waste that much sugar, you know. Yeah, this hands-on experience is quite, I think,
51:55 it's... ...tuned the nuances, as you say. It's all about the nuances, right? But it's like this. And your farm is so special to see the plants thriving here. Yeah. It's been a great experience. I know we joined yesterday. I'd say. And we started. My placillas. Protectors. Wow. If you haven't come out here, come out here.
52:43 So yeah, for me, obviously, I don't know if you can see, but the view is spectacular. Sunrises are amazing. But, yeah, just getting that hands-on experience. Like, if we were in a classroom, I don't think everything would sit in or sink in as well. But getting some on-farm experience where we've made a few mistakes and we're able to kind of see our mistakes and then work through those. and not being like, so when we go back ourselves, we're not stuck without, oh, crap, we don't have this or that. So, yeah, just getting that on your hands dirty and we set off the IMO piles.
53:28 You're not just learning the theory and the way that you're actually getting sightseeing ways to apply these and applicable ways that they, you know, you could take back to your environment and put to use? Yeah, so as far as my experience has been here, I mean, of course, we're in paradise, baby. But on top of that is to really see how he's been applying it to the land and how those things have been shifting the dynamics in his ecosystem, you know, walking up to the barn this morning to flip the IMO
54:15 and seeing the difference between your neighbor's pasture and yours, you know, it's just, you could see the visual difference. And I think that's something that sticks with us forever. We could talk about moving our cattle around to different paddocks, right? And really putting in that grazing. but what is it doing and to actually see a side by side of what's happening of those natives coming back in and really supporting that system and and also building a better system for for your animals as well right giving them better things to make their systems healthier in return closing
55:00 that loop and giving you something back in return as well so it's this beautiful in life picture of this give and take that's happening and and massive growths um and though we're all coming from different regions like you know ben here's coming from the desert and even just getting to to learn about the little techniques that he can do to to still um put out these different products it's just amazing. Our inputs, you know, not really a product, it's more of an input, you know. And on the animal, a note on the animal raising, it's amazing to see how you can
55:40 actually have pig pens and chicken pens with zero smell. No smell. It's like, I've heard of this before, and it's like, oh, but there must be a little smell, and it's like no smell at all. They actually smell like a good forest boar, and it's, Yeah, it's a good environment to be there. Don't pet the pigs with sugar in your hands. Don't pet the pigs with sugar in your hands. So, we have one of those five new sandwiches. I'm just here. See you when you get back on. And say hello to the people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're new to this, so say hello. Am I even on the camera? No.
56:25 i'll get you hello my name is leah um so what is how do i see knf growing and how do i want to take it back with me yeah well you're you're just like your solution basically you know like you know in a way like what do you see i'm upset we got you now yeah i uh i feel so blessed to be here and to get to uh experience all of this through jake's or jake's uh tutelage and um i feel really excited to bring it back i'm from california and
57:14 um i'm gonna take it back and we're building a permaculture pick your own food forest um and flower farm so we'll be using it there and hopefully teaching others about what we're doing um and so yeah i want to take it back and bring it to california i'm sure it's there already but also building some california community around it so if anyone's out there in california and you want to hang out um that would be fun around the bay area i don't know something i don't know when you're down but so we've been here for only like three days but i can say we found a lifelong family
57:54 the last like literally all these people i'll keep in contact with for the rest of my life probably so i've only known them for three days so that's awesome so yeah i mean so we've been just we've been just discussing a little bit just like how you know It's nice to see that other people are on the same mission as you. Like, we're not alone in the world. So, I appreciate you guys. Yeah, that was one of the big reasons why I wanted to come here, is to get some mentorship and to find community around it. I feel like having other people around to mirror back your passions
58:40 can make it so much easier to feel like your passions are valid and feel excited to keep going forward and doing it with other people makes it so much more fun. So we got three more minutes left with the office art. I just want to say thank you to Drake and to everybody who tuned in today. thank you to the KNF community and to Drake for fostering it and bringing us all together yeah it's an honor to share this space with you guys and to be a part of this community and to tune in on Sundays and get to talk story about these things yeah I just want to express my gratitude to the
59:28 KNF fam and to the farm fam here during the course and yeah I look forward to to continue sharing this journey with you all and that's it some of the regulars on there I know Portita is like one of the regulars names I recognize the goofman shows up every Sunday yeah who wants to say hi thank you guys
1:00:16 thank you mahalo aloha get your butts out here today we're going to learn about but um so we've already turned our imo pile this morning which is awesome it's heating up so and structure we're gonna do some uh structure the reproduction formula we're gonna make liquid imo disgustingly cheap microbes and then yeah close up with our teacher training Bye.