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Microbes Digest, You Absorb: Keep Microbes and Feed Local

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang, Founder of Korean Natural Farming (Janong)

Spoken in Korean. Translated to English and checked line by line.

Seated now, Cho says a crop is a living being made of the same sun, air, water and soil as us, so farming starts with humility: 'natural farming is love'. He writes three chi and three heats on a fresh flip-chart page and says body heat is fermentation heat, because microbes digest our food and we absorb what they make. From there: collect microbes near you, and feed livestock what is made here, not shipped in.

What they found

The question

Why does Cho want microbes, and livestock feed, to come from close to home?

How they tested it

Thursday morning, about an hour in. Cho sits beside the flip chart and starts a new page: 自然 = ?, then 三氣 (熱氣, 空氣, 水氣) and 三熱 (天熱, 地熱, 醱酵熱). He questions the room and tells a Korean story about a daughter-in-law at a feast. He says the slides for this are coming in the evening session, which was not recorded.

What was compared
  • Microbes for the crop — Mix Protectors (LAB, lactic acid bacteria) with microbes from the nearby mountain valley and give them to the crop. Cho's Korean; the interpreter said 'feed the food from your area' instead of 'the microbes of that area'. No amounts given.
Results
  1. A crop is a living being like you, made of the same sun, air, water and soil.

    Banana, papaya, mango and me: 'what we're made of is the same.'

    ▶ 58:06 As spoken

  2. Put yourself in the crop's place and a conversation with the crop happens.

    'If I were in its place, what would it be like?'

    ▶ 59:34 As spoken

  3. Natural farming starts with humility: fit your mind to the crop, not the crop to your mind.

    In love you change to fit the other. 'So natural farming is love.'

    ▶ 1:01:04 As spoken

  4. Vague thinking about nature makes vague farming.

    The room answered 'everything', 'God', 'us', 'energy'. Cho: know it clearly enough to use it freely.

    ▶ 1:03:02 As spoken

  5. If this doesn't land, redo levels 1, 2 and 3.

    If it does, the third-level course was worth it.

    ▶ 1:04:06 As spoken

  6. Three chi: heat chi, air chi, water chi (三氣: 熱氣, 空氣, 水氣).

    Written on the flip chart under 自然 = ?

    ▶ 1:04:45

  7. Three heats: sky heat (the sun), earth heat (volcano), and fermentation heat (三熱: 天熱, 地熱, 醱酵熱).

    Hawaiʻi is an island made by earth heat rising up.

    ▶ 1:05:22

  8. Body heat is fermentation heat: microbes digest the food we eat, and we absorb what they digest.

    'If you eat thinking I digest this food, that's wrong.'

    ▶ 1:07:23 As spoken

  9. Gut microbes are used to the food that usually comes in; something new gives them a shock.

    Cho tells it with a Korean story about a daughter-in-law at a feast (in the transcript), then applies it to livestock feed below.

    ▶ 1:08:55 As spoken

  10. Collect microbes near you (indigenous), not from far away.

    'That's exactly the microbes near your own body.' Slides promised for the evening.

    ▶ 1:11:31 As spoken

  11. Pigs, chickens and cattle fed feed brought in from outside will, without fail, get sick: their gut microbes are shocked.

    Cho asks whether Hawaiʻi Island feed comes from Hawaiʻi or the mainland; the room: from all over the world.

    ▶ 1:12:20 As spoken

  12. Protectors (LAB) are good, but the microbes of that area are better; mix the two for the crop.

    LAB plus mountain-valley microbes, given to the crop.

    ▶ 1:13:43 As spoken

  13. Making feed here, instead of shipping it from the mainland, is the safest way.

    How to make feed is to be taught later (interpreter: 'maybe tomorrow').

    ▶ 1:15:25 As spoken

Hold it loosely
  • Cho also says that people who eat food grown within ten li (about 4 km) of home with local microbes don't get sick, and tells the diarrhea story about gut microbes; these were not tested and we don't repeat them as advice.
  • Cho points to slides for the evening session (Thursday evening was not recorded).
  • No rates or recipes for local microbes or feed are given on this page.
For your farm
  • Collect Microbes (IMO) from near your own farm; they already fit your place.
  • Protectors (LAB) work best alongside your local microbes, not instead of them.
  • Feed made on the island assists your animals' gut microbes more than feed shipped in; change feed slowly.
  • Fermentation heat is the one of the three heats you can make and use on the farm.

Next to Master Cho's teaching

  • Agrees

    Three heats: sky, earth, fermentation Same three heats he taught at Papaikou earlier in 2017, where too fermentation heat is the one people miss.

    2017/Cho - Papaikou/IMG_9591 @ 0:21:20 (translated)

  • Agrees

    Collect microbes in your own farming region His recipe book says each microbe has its own habitat, so you must collect microorganisms in the farming region.

    Cho, Natural Farming Agricultural Materials (Recipe), p. 9

  • Agrees

    Feed livestock from what is at hand, not shipped feed His livestock book has a section on self-sufficient feed from local resources such as leaf-litter humus combined with Natural Farming solutions.

    자연농업 양계·양돈·축산 (Natural Farming poultry, swine, livestock) (English translation), p. 132–135

“Don't try to fit the crop's mind to yours. Fit your mind to the crop's, and that's success.”

▶ 1:01:16

“So natural farming is love.”

▶ 1:02:04

“The microbes digest the food I eat, and what the microbes digest, I absorb.”

▶ 1:07:23

In this talk

  1. 58:06Crops are alive like us; farming is love
  2. 1:02:15What is nature? Three chi, three heats
  3. 1:06:28Body heat is fermentation; the daughter-in-law at the feast
  4. 1:11:21Local microbes, local feed

Transcript

English translation, checked against the Korean as spoken.