Konkuk University, Seoul · October 5–7, 2016

Natural Science Farming Symposium 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.

Read what it all adds up to →

Also on the record: Hilo 2015

Topics microbes soil economics pigs poultry rice history corn food scale disease feed health minerals protectors reproduction Clear

6 talks on “history”

Joe McGinn ·United States (Hawaiʻi) ·25 min

100 Pigs, No Bought Feed: Oʻahu's Natural Farming Network

Joe McGinn tells how a natural farming support network grew on Oʻahu in the five years after he trained with Dr. Hoon Park and Master Cho in 2011: shared classes, hands-on input making, a 2013 Hawaiʻi symposium, and whole families on the farm. His own farm keeps about 100 pigs, two dozen chickens and six goats on no bought feed, using brewery spent grain treated with natural farming inputs. He also names the hard parts: few trainees keep farming, there is not yet enough product for market, and classes don't pay for themselves.

Found About 100 pigs, two dozen chickens and half a dozen goats on no bought feed

community economics feed history microbes pigs

Drake Weinert ·United States (Hawaiʻi) ·9 min

A $130-a-Year Website Reached 56,000 Users Without Ads

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.

Found 56,456 users since 2010

education history internet outreach pigs

Son Sung-kyu ·South Korea ·10 min

Mindanao Rice Farmers Took Up Cho's Method, Now Export Rice

A Korean pastor who served in the Philippines from 1991 to 2013 contrasts chemical and natural farming on two slides of paired words, then shows a pig pen and a duck-and-chicken coop. He says farmers used to chemicals are the hardest to change, even after some 60 conferences. He ends with a Mindanao NGO report: he brought Master Cho in for a three-day seminar, the group spent a year testing natural farming on rice, and he says the farmers now export brown rice.

Found Farmers already used to chemical farming were hard to convert, even after almost 60 conferences

economics history pigs poultry rice soil

Cho Han-kyu ·South Korea ·23 min Spoken in Korean

Cho at 82: Natural Farming Is Love, Not a Technique

Master Cho, 82, speaks without slides near the end of the first day. Despite the uploader's title, this is not a history lecture. His point is that natural farming is a movement of love, not a technique, and he makes it with stories: turning Kona lava into 3 cm of soil in six months with corn and microbes, Hawaiʻi's vanished egg farms, a 1,200-hectare project in China, and a spring made with bananas in Africa. He also corrects the students on Microbes (IMO4): mix in soil from the field the IMO4 will go to.

Found He has farmed since age 14 and is now 82

corn history microbes minerals poultry scale

David Wong ·United States (Hawaiʻi) ·21 min

No Antibiotics, No Vaccines: A Pig Farmer on Food and Health

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'

antibiotics disease health history livestock pigs

Kim Doo-hwan, with Master Cho Han-kyu and Dr. Hoon Park ·South Korea ·19 min

Cho Closes the First Symposium: 'The Seed Is Planted'

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.

Found 23 presentations were given at the symposium

education history scale