Konkuk University, Seoul · October 5–7, 2016
A day of talks in Seoul, then two days on the farms. 23 talks, three languages. Master Cho's students from ten countries showed what natural farming did on their fields, from Afghan potatoes to Hawaiian macadamias. Every talk is translated, checked line by line, and boiled down to what was tested and what happened.
Also on the record: Hilo 2015
4 talks on “disease”
Chris Trump, who farms 800 acres of macadamia nuts in Hawaiʻi with his family, reports six years of feeding the whole orchard with natural farming only. He says the full program, labor included, costs $21 per acre per year, and that 98% of diseased trees recovered. He also explains why he moved from huge solid Microbes (IMO4) piles to a sprayed liquid Microbes (liquid IMO) program after a storm hit a 50-ton pile.
Teruhiko Sawamura grows organic greenhouse tomatoes in Shiranui, Kumamoto, using natural farming he learned from Master Cho. He builds soil with riverbank reeds and grasses aged three years into low-nitrogen compost, plus home-made bokashi made on a clay floor, and sprays a home-made plant extract with brown rice vinegar and seawater. He reports much less bacterial wilt, organic tomatoes shipped in the scarce autumn season from ten years of his own saved seed, and support from the Kumamoto governor after the 2016 earthquake. It is a farm report with photos; no trial data were shown.
A Konkuk plant pathologist, new to natural farming, reviews biological control of soil-borne disease and shows his own work: bacteria coated on rice seed against seedling rot, and bacteria against Phytophthora root rot of pepper, both working better when given a sugar the bacteria can use and the pathogen cannot. He then gives first, unreplicated microbe counts from the Paju natural farming soils and from each IMO step: counts fell about tenfold from IMO1 to IMO4 and the fungi shifted from Aspergillus to Rhizopus. He draws no conclusion about natural farming yet.
A Hawaiʻi pig farmer who started with nine piglets in 2012 says his farm uses no antibiotics, vaccines, hormones or steroids and came through two local disease outbreaks without trouble. He then argues, with news clippings and US disease graphs, that drugs in livestock and chemicals in food harm human health, and closes by telling the room he has cancer and is treating it with food alone.
Found Pigs raised since 2012 with no antibiotics, vaccines, hormones or steroids, 'doing quite well'
