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
3 talks on “education”
Drake Weinert reported eight years of running NaturalFarmingHawaii.net, a one-person WordPress blog that cost about $130 a year and was never advertised. Google Analytics showed 56,456 users, 95,858 sessions and 237,176 page views since 2010, with most visitors arriving through web search and very few from social media. The odorless pig page, Cho's learning materials and how-to-apply guides drew the most views.
Juju Wang, a professor at National Tsing Hua University, argued that natural farming in Taiwan should be run as a social movement and spread through 'social design': projects that make taking part easy and fun. He showed examples, including a two-acre lotus farm kept by 287 trustees who pay about US$100 a year, rice brands built around sparrows and the endangered leopard cat, school gardens, two university farmers' markets, and vegetable bouquets at graduation. He gave no figures on how much these projects changed farm incomes or land use.
Found Lotus farm trust: 287 trustees pay NT$3,000 (about US$100) a year
The closing of the symposium. Prof. Kim Doo-hwan sums up the day's 23 talks: foreign graduate students who first met natural farming in March 2016 studied it at Konkuk, practiced it on the Paju farm, ran trials and presented them. He calls on everyone to spread it worldwide and hopes for a second and third symposium. Master Cho promises to back the movement with the years he has left: 'This is the beginning. The seed has been planted.' A Taiwanese Atayal couple sings, and the day ends with a slogan for love shouted in many languages.
