Currently, when you hear the term “natural Farming” it is referring to one of two Asian traditions. The japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, whose 1975 book “One straw revolution” had a big impact on the “back to the land” movement back in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
Or, more recently, it refers to Korean Natural Farming, which was promoted and popularized by Dr. Cho Han Kyu (referred to as Master Cho most often) since the 1960’s. Master Cho’s mission was to avoid buying off farm inputs to maintain fertility and production on the farm. He did not want poor Korean farmers trapped in a cycle of buying chemicals and poisons from corporations, and thus losing profitability. Instead he wanted to use old farming techniques mainly from Japan and Korea, some of which have been utilized across Asia for thousands of years, based on fermenting of naturally growing plants locally and tinctures of those plants and the crops to pull out minerals and nutrients as well.
Additionally, an offshoot of Korean Natural Farming, is JADAM, which is a system developed by Master Cho’s son, Youngsang Cho. JADAM’s mission is the same as Korean Natural Farming, and there is a lot of overlap, but using his chemistry and horticulture degrees to update and extend how to create some of the inputs, and researched more mixtures for specific pests.
The fundamental basis of all of these techniques is to use what is naturally available. What plants want to, and can easily grow on your farm or nearby your farm, to improve your soils, and to control yours and your animal wastes, to promote more fertility in your soils. This is done by promoting and encouraging your soil food web, and using the “manures” and interactions of the microbiology with the plant, just as you would use livestock above ground.
This is a broad topic, as it covers soil biology, plant biology, fungi, chemistry, and even some physics in the more advanced explanations. To simplify the discussion, I will focus on the techniques used in JADAM, as it seems to bridge the old world techniques, and the new more scientific adaptations while still focusing on keeping everything as simple and cheap as possible.
Even while using these concepts, it is still very easy to spend a lot of money, if you let yourself. There are people selling composts, microbial innoculants, and prepared mixtures. So while I may mention or link to a product for purchase, just remember, all of this can be done without purchasing expensive inputs, at least in the small scale of 1/4 to 1 to 5 acres. As you scale up, you have to buy equipment (or employees) to create and distribute the inputs over large areas, but that is the same with any farming operation. The savings is in spending $5 to $50 dollars per acre to increase soil health, which determines productivity, vs spending hundreds of dollars per acre for chemicals which reduce soil health, and productivity over time.
Finally, additional resources that promote and advance these techniques, and discuss actual commercial farms using them, are Future Cannabis Project youtube channel(usually they are tagged with “living soil”) and John Kempf’s channel, Advancing Eco Agriculture, in which he promotes his business of consulting and supplying inputs at the commercial level. The information shared on these channels are gold, and I will reference them at times, or use them as a basis for an article.
(additional links to above referenced groups)
“one straw revolution” documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj7nrOjhMtk
Korean Natural Farming website: https://naturalfarminghawaii.net/
another KNF website: https://www.naturalfarming.co/
and his youtube in which he shows the process of making some of the inputs: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisTrumpSoilSteward/videos
JADAM website and youtube channel: https://en.jadam.kr/news/articleList.html?sc_sub_section_code=S2N1&view_type=sm
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpLIq2dhpu34qkIyyaeEGxw
Advancing Eco Agriculture site: https://www.advancingecoag.com/
The soil food web: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/soils/health/biology/?cid=nrcs142p2_053868
By: FuBear
