Living soil. Read all about it.

There are many sites talking about Bokashi, about EM, about how marvelous it all is.

Which it is. (Of course.)

But this one’s a bit different. There are some real experts on board and they’ve been working with Bokashi for many years. With a lot of heart in what they’re doing.

Here’s a paper by a Dan Woodward talking about soil and sustainability. Effective Microorganisms as Regenerative Systems in Earth Healing.

It’ll take you a little while to read and digest so it’s probably worth going and getting yourself a cup of coffee before you dive in. But it’ll be one of the more interesting coffee breaks you’ve had for a while!

Here’s the link to the article>>  The organization is called Living Soil and they’re based in the UK.

Growing up the wall in Jerusalem

Cool idea isn’t it? Tomatoes growing up the wall. Veggies growing in pyramids.

This high-school in Hod-Ha’Sharon makes research on agriculture which can be done by people in their apartments, balconies, walls or roofs.
They also study how to re-use and recycle water.

They test whether tomatoes can grow in bags on the wall or whether it is possible to cultivate plants in triangle-shaped pyramids, made from soil in plastic foils.
This method advantage is that the ground area can multiply in 3 times the number of plants growing comparing to conventional flat bed.

Given that most people in the world live in dense urban environments this is the way to go. How can we feed a growing world population? My guess is that the first thing is to learn how to “produce” soil and then find a whole lot of creative new ways of using it so we can grow on whatever spaces we have available.

Here we’re testing the idea of producing soil and growing in bread crates. It’s looking promising at this stage! 10 bread crates stacked on a wooden pallet (2 stacks of five shallow crates). Make soil in the lower crates (Bokashi and potting mix) and grow herbs and salad in the top ones. You maybe don’t grow so incredibly much food but it’s looking like a small family could take care of all their own food waste on a space no bigger than a pallet. On asphalt or a sunny corner at the back of an apartment building.

Love to hear your ideas! There are probably many crazy ideas worth testing — who knows, some of them may be what our children’s children end up using to grow their own food. It would be nice to think we’ve helped make it happen.

Read the article here>>

Follow bokashiworld on facebook if you’d rather, I’m posting the blogs there along with a lot of other bits and pieces as they turn up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earthquake cleanup using EM in Christchurch

So many New Zealanders have lost their home and their hope to the recent earthquake in Christchurch. One small light in the dark is the work our colleagues in New Zealand are doing with EM. They have loaded up trucks with liquid EM (Effective Microorganisms) and are spraying it on contaminated areas to help fight the inevitable spread of odour and germs. Basically it’s a case of getting good bacteria to outnumber the bad bacteria before they get a hold.

It’s not till you see it happening you realize how much follows in the wake of an earthquake. Cleanup is not just about buildings, it’s also about preventing the spread of disease.

Good luck guys! Well done!

As they say on the YouTube clip…

A devastating earthquake in Christchurch on Feb 22nd 2011 has left the City with extensive liquefaction and raw sewage covering large urban areas.
EM is being used to spray over this smelly contamination to help control the bad odours and to help control the pathogens (bad bugs) that are present.
EM has a history of being used in many disaster recovery situations.
Naturefarm in conjunction with Interclean and CityCare are pleased to be making a difference by using EM to help this clean-up process.

More info here:

http://emrojapan.com/emnews/content/380.html

Good spot to find EM reference material!

Just had to share this excellent reference site. There’s a long list of documents (in English) on a lot of different EM applications — agriculture, animal husbandry, aquaculture, construction…

Knowledge is growing in all of these areas and while much of it is widespread and in many different languages, you can start to see how the puzzle pieces are starting to fall into place.

Have a look here, you never know what you mind find interesting! If nothing else, it will give you a feeling of hope for the future. Good things are happening out there!

Click here to get to the Malaysian reference site>>

Check out www.emrojapan.com for more information too.

Bokashi in the Philippines

I’ve picked up a few bits of news recently from the Philippines about the inroads being made by Bokashi and EM. Partly I think they can be put down to someone somewhere being on the ball and getting the information out to the press, but that doesn’t always have to be such a bad thing. So many silly and downright poor things get a lot of airspace, its great to see that something genuinely good like Bokashi also gets some promotion.

Anyway, here the Manilla Bulletin Publishing Corporation is writing about how the Department of Agriculture in the Philippines is promoting organic farming throughout the Philippines — like everywhere else the challenge is to produce enough food — now — without jeopardising the environment. Apparently the project involves a huge investment in solutions for soil inoculation. Thus far, they say, the most effective they’ve found is produced locally using the Bokashi method developed by Dr. Teruo Higa that creates fertilizer out of organic materials, including kitchen waste.

I don’t know the details, but Bokashi in an agricultural setting in Asian countries is sort of the same, same, but different to what we do here in our homes. In Indonesia, I believe they take production leftovers (banana waste) and make huge piles on the ground which they then make into Bokashi compost, in other words ferment it using EM (Effective Microorganisms). Much as we do in our little kitchen bins but on a scale big enough to spread out onto the fields.

The effects have been reported as impressive in applications where they’ve got the balance right. The microbes are spread across the land where they set up camp and start breeding, gradually improving the microlife in the soil with all the benefits that brings. The carrier (be it food waste, banana stuff, leftovers from wine production (as used in NZ) helps feed the microbes while they do their work.

The US Department of Agriculture has recently done some research into whether this works or not and came up with a positive result — yes, EM improves productivity, provided it is added in conjunction with organic material.

It’s a fantastically positive sign — in times like this where land is being destroyed by chemical mismanagement or unable to produce the required yields through traditional organic farming, it’s a relief to see there are some strong forces propagating for change. Yes, we can do this better! Yes, we can get it right!

Read more here on REAP Canada’s website, REAP stands for Resource Efficient Agricultural Production. It’s an independent, non-profit organisation working to help the world produce more food more efficiently.

Can bacteria juice save the world?

Not my headline but I wish it was.

A truly excellent blog by Holly Jean Buck from October 2008 — well worth reading if you’re in the least interested in Bokashi, in EM, in the ecological future of our planet. Read it here on “The Walrus”, which bills itself as Canada’s best magazine.

Holly Jean Buck writes that she first tried bacteria juice during an afternoon tea break at Konohana Family, an organic community in Japan near the base of Mt. Fuji. A self-supporting cooperative, they base everything they do on Effective Microorganisms (EM), the fermentation concept developed at a university in Okinawa during the 1970s by agriculture professor Teruo Higa.

As she was shown around the chicken coops, the goat barn, the veggie patch (they have 13 hectares of land), and ate a sumptuous lunch on the farm, Holly became increasingly convinced. This must surely be the way to go, but why haven’t we heard about it before?

Good question. Maybe the right answer is that we also need to embrace things that are working well — extremely well, in fact — for people that are working in closer harmony with nature than we are ourselves. Where nature thrives there’s surely something to learn from the process?

 PS Read more about the Konohana ecocommunity here. I have to say I got quite fascinated — I spent some months living in Japan when I was younger and love a lot about the country, the people, the culture but found the commercial rat-race a bit much to be honest. To spend time working on an ecofarm like this would be a dream — all the best of Japan without the stuff that makes it impossible!