Agriculture is now the largest source of global non-point specific pollution. (1) Furthermore, the foods of our current food production systems are on average 40% deficient of the known nutrients held by equivalent food products of 50 years ago. This was foreseen by Weston Price D.D.S. (1870-1948) in the early 1900’s and has been born out by current research. (2)(Davis, 2009)

This work proposes a shift in the current agricultural paradigm: Remediate and reduce the effects of agricultural toxins with a shift in our approach to soil treatment methods, and produce food with the focus of enlivening it with a wider panel of nutrient accessibility, all within a food production system that builds soil heath, fosters ecosystem diversity, human community and a sense of connection between humanity and nature.

Intact, old growth ecosystems with primary forest cover present soils covered in leaf litter. These ancient systems give homes to a vast array of microbial species, soil animals, and other life forms working synergistically to create healthy, native biosphere ecologies. Ancient trees grow to huge proportions. Working with beneficial microbes they reach into the deeper soil horizons making nutrients accessible. Through their complex life processes, particle-by-particle they lift the earth’s bedrock parent materials. These trees, in concert with beneficial microbes & with the forces of the sun & rain, make these rock nutrients available to other living species around them, creating nutrient dense, complex biospheres of diversity. Gathering the products of this system as food, the first peoples had a source of nutrient dense nutrition. While they lived in nature day and night, they had a pace of life that honored observation, reflection, shared community efforts, and a reverence for our part within a larger cosmos.

Over the recent millennia, while humanity has spent less time being chased by tigers, bears and bees in our efforts to fill our bellies we have also reduced our society to agricultural, then to industrial consolidation. Holding economy and efficiency as our precepts, agriculture in the western world and beyond has reduced our interactions with nature to a minimum in an effort to save time and money, while pushing nature to feed us with as little man power as possible.

When humanity aimed to systematize food acquisition, we strove to simplify the complex interactions between the trees, water, the sun, the heavens, and the production of our food. We did create functional systems of fertilizers and amendments made in factories with the focus of growing as much food / calorie volume as possible per unit of space. But we also neglected to inquire into the possibility of the existence of unseen elemental components, which gave life force and health resilience to the wild foods we ate millennia ago. As a result of our desire to simplify, we have caused not only the destruction of ecosystems worldwide but we have also caused what Weston Price called the: “nutritional basis for modern physical, mental, and moral degeneration.” (3)

For it is now the case that even the farmers who choose to employ strictly organic standards are dealing with soils tainted with poisons and depleted of minerals and life force, in comparison to the ancient spectrum of soil nutrients.

The majority of life processes within soil occur within the top inches. In the days of the primal forests this topsoil zone was covered with a thick, resilient mat of fallen leaf and twig litters, intertwined with the root tendrils of a healthy network of fungal mycorrhizae. This topsoil, breaking down from leaf litter and rock sediment washing down from alluvial waters, is postulated to arise from natural microbial processes at a rate of one inch per 500 years. (Erlich & Erlich, 1991)(4) Topsoil, with its array of mutualistic beneficial, gives plants and trees what they need to thrive. Deforestation, the ensuing erosion that takes place within deforested areas, and the pursuant disruptions of natural cycles has caused problems for the global ecology worldwide. In the United States among other pursuant distortions we see factors such as:

1. Topsoil reduction of an estimated 6.9 billion tons annually. (4)
2. Loss of soil tilth due to lack of humus replacement with commercial methods.
3. Loss of minerals within remaining soil.
4. Reduced food nutrients due to N-P-K usage (1).
5. Loss of beneficial microbial life as denuded soil is exposed to sun, wind, and erosion.
6. Depletion of water tables by irrigation practices. (5)
7. Pollution of water and soil through non-point specific agricultural toxins. (1)
8. Poisoned croplands through excess salts from irrigation and repeated application of chemical fertilizers.
9. Loss of species habitat and diversity.
10. Food now grown holds a dearth of the nutrients possessed by the same foods grown even 50 years ago. (2)
11. Less than 3% of the population produces our food which results in a disconnect from the source of our food.
12. Perilous health of the honeybee and other pollinators, the result of which is that our entire source of lycopene rich foods, the majority of our sources of vitamin A and related caroteniods, calcium, folic acid, and fluoride source plants and 90% of our vitamin C source, foods among many others listed by Eilers et al. are now in jeopardy as all will be lost if our pollinators continue to disappear at the current rate. (6)

Nature is suffering as a result of our “practices”.

Furthermore since 1900 troubling conditions have arisen for humanity within the industrial world:

1. There are higher rates of obesity, heart attack, cancers, kidney disease, pancreatic problems, allergies, asthma and other diseases than there have been in the history of civilization.
2. Many are mentally or spiritually dis-eased, hurried, stressed and isolated from nature and the larger cosmos.

 

I dare to infer that there may be a correlation between earth’s current fragile ecological state and the state of humanity’s illnesses of body and mind.

 

How did this come about so precipitously over the last century? While there has surely been an evolution to our ecological dissolution there was at least one defining moment in recent history.

Born in 1803 Justus von Liebig was fascinated by chemistry.  His penchant for reducing every thing to analysis led him to devise the Kaliapparat, a five-bulb device that used potassium hydroxide to remove the organic combustion product of carbon dioxide from his reactions. He also popularized a vapor condensation device, not of his own design but still in use today, known as the Liebig condenser. In the first 30 years of his work he pioneered innovative methods of analysis of organic and inorganic chemicals. He championed agriculture as the core of trade and industry. It was from this vantage point from which, in 1838 he began his reductionist work with soils, plant, and animal life. He popularized the trend of firing up various vegetable and animal materials to determine which nutrients, in what quantities, were contained within. As a result he believed that plants derived their carbon from ambient CO2 and their nitrogen from ambient ammonia through what he took to be a chemical process of “putrefaction and fermentation”. Discounting the role of humus in the soil he believed plants absorbed potash, “soda”, lime, sulphur, and phosphorus from the soil; he reasoned that to maintain a productive agricultural system, chemical forms of these nutrients would be superior and he set about to produce them. He also fathered the law of the minimum (the limiting factor) in agriculture: growth of a plant is controlled not by the total resources available but by the resource found in the minimum quantity.

At this phase of his life he did not stop to consider whether there might be unseen forces at work within agriculture. He came to the conclusion that nitrogen must come to plants in the form of ammonias. He instituted the preparation of artificial manures of insoluble minerals held together with ammonium salts. These fertilizers, and philosophy, are the derivation of modern chemical agriculture. In 1840, Liebig, having never farmed to test his theories in the field, published what became his seminal Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology.

It was apparently not until 1845, five years after the publication of his book, which by then had started the turning of the wheels of commerce and trade in chemical amendments for agriculture, that Liebig actually performed agriculture experiments to prove his theories on ten acres of land in Giessen, Germany. These agricultural experiments were, in the words of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica: “ not wholly successful”. (7) But as this other than triumphant experiment was never widely publicized, his methods have continued to rein due to their apparent scientific method.

Over time, awakened by the work of Jay T. Way, (a chemist now fallen into obscurity, but cited in the same 1911 Britannica), Liebig came to realize that “the soil has a capacity to absorb and hold nutrients within it” (7) and he came to understand the importance of introducing nutrients to the soil in a soluble rather than insoluble form. Other such revelations about nature must have come to him before he died in 1873, for he is quoted by the 1899 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, as having said: “I had sinned against the wisdom of the Creator, and received my righteous punishment. I wished to improve His work, and in my blindness believed that, in the marvelous chain of laws binding life on earth’s surface and keeping it always new, a link had been forgotten which I, a weak and powerless worm, must supply.” (8) Few people alive today are aware of the remorse he felt for his effect upon agriculture. For this reason his theories and his techniques continue to influence agriculture and the sale of fertilizers sold by chemical companies for huge profit in “trade and industry” in fulfillment of the commerce he had aimed to foster.

Rather than allow Liebig’s remorse to lie in hidden archives, let us explore what would happen if we work not toward the commerce of an agriculture industry developed around his theories but instead toward agriculture based upon his awakening, an agriculture, which honors the interlinked processes of food production, and the health of the global ecology.
Again in Germany answers begin to surface, twenty years after Liebig’s death, when Julius Henzel published Bread From Stones (after five or six years of agricultural practice of his ideas there). His method had met with ‘amazing success’. [In the words of his publisher] (Henzel, 1893) (9) and became a sort of ‘cause’   “sustained by enthusiastic supporters, who saw it as one of the means by which the human race is to be at least physically regenerated, and a sound body is a proper base for a sound mind” (Henzel, 1893)

Julius Henzel decries the Law of the Minimum, as “a false precept which owes its reception solely to the defective method of chemical investigation which prevailed fifty years [ago] ” (Henzel, 1893). Henzel begins the exposition of his ideas by first explaining precisely what Liebig had sought to accomplish and exactly how Liebig had gotten off course in his conclusions: “As there was found a considerable quantity of phosphoric acid and of potash in the ashes of (vegetables tested) and as these do not exist in the air and must therefore be furnished by the soil, it was very natural that the inquiry was started: ‘how much of these substances are necessary for the raising of plants is still at hand in the soil?’ But when the soil was investigated and treated with muric acid in order that the substances contained might be dissolved, there were found only inconsiderable quantities of potash and of phosphoric acid in this solution, because the alkali’s in the soil which are combined with silicic acid are as little dissolved by muric acid as, e.g., powdered glass. In order to be able to define the amount of potash, it is necessary to drive out the silicic acid by the use of fluoric acid after having converted it into volatile fluoride of silicum; this method was not used by the chemists [i.e. Liebig]. As a result they overlooked the presence of potash, so also did they fail to notice the phosphoric acid which is combined with alumina and iron in the silicates, because when the iron was precipitated from the solution, the whole of the aluminum and phosphoric acid was precipitated with it; the further examination of the fluid solution therefore gave a negative result with respect to phosphoric acid, and this is also the case at this day if we work according to the old method. The teachers of agriculture therefore announced: ‘Of potash and of phosphoric acid, these most important nutriments of plants, there is only a minimum left in the soil; therefore we must first of all supply potash and phosphoric acid to our fields.’ ” (Henzel, 1893 p.11) Likewise, Liebig imagined the importance of nitrogen because “Nitrogen in the form of vegetable albumen [protein] is on average contained in such quantities in plants that its weight frequently exceeds the fixed constituents of the ashes.”(Henzel, 1893,p.11) Deftly Henzel goes on to explain how this too might have given rise to Liebig’s erroneous conclusions. Which, as Henzel notes, were the foundation of the movement toward the use of sulphate of ammonia, super-phosphates, guano, and Chilean nitrate” (Henzel, 1893, p13), the use of which, he notes, even in 1893, were not only bankrupting the farmers but also destroying the caliber of the food products and the soils of the farms employing these then recent products of the laboratory.

To Henzel, free ammonia (which was championed by Liebig) is poison to plants (Henzel, 1893, p.43). Henzel advocates its admixture with lime, advising strongly against all “ammoniacal” fertilizers which “ blind the eyes with the formation of abundance of leaves but no substance or healthy growth is effected thereby and this method produces plants subject to rotting.”(Henzel, 1893, p.58) This is just as we now see in our supermarkets: eye-catching produce lacking in minerals, the embodiment of form without substance.

While nitrogenous ammonia is injurious, what is effective consists of the combustible hydrocarbons [the straw of the stable floors], which are the “ready building materials, and further, the earthy or ashy constituents to which the hydro-carbons cling. The nitrogen of the solid and liquid manures may be used in the construction of plants, but in order to produce crops useful to health it is necessary to add to it sufficient quantities of alkalies and of alkaline earths in the form of stone-meals as a counterpoise.” (Henzel, 1893 pg.48) “Pulverized Primitive rock, together with the carbonate and the sulphate of lime, forms the best and most natural fertilizer” (Henzel, 1893,p. 39) Along these lines, to combat ammonia poisoning in stables, Henzel advocates strewing gypsum upon the floors to transform the liquid manure into odorless sulphate of ammonia and carbonate of lime. (Henzel, 1893, p.45) Henzel explains that the use of “lime” in isolation however, may give quick results, pleasing to the eye, but the products of such agriculture are weak in vital forces, while the method itself will destroy the soil overtime. Ammonium fertilizers and manures themselves (containing ammonium as they do) are in his eyes deleterious for plant life. He felt that feed produced through the use of manures from animals fed such feeds gives rise to weak and diseased progeny. Instead, many other minerals than the NPK “are imperatively demanded” (Henzel, 1893, p.6)

Quite simply he points out that the weathering of primary rocks in the mountain ranges the world over have produced soils in the highest nutrient contents [as in Hunza land]. He mentions the role of fluoride from the rock meals as having a strengthening role in the soils, which in turn will be incorporated into the body of those who eat grains grown on such soils.

“As granite rocks contain on average, six percent of potassium and soda, while their contents of phosphoric acid are more than one percent, granite by itself will readily fulfill the demands for vegetable growth” and moreover growth of the highest caliber.”(Henzel, 1893, p.22) He mentions a friend’s sighting of stalks of rye [growing] wild on the heap of powdered rock refuse at a quarry in the Alps with ears containing ninety to one hundred grains. (Henzel, 1893, p.22) He contrasts this with the tendency of grains raised on a diet of ammonium rich manures to lodge: the result being that the manure-grown grain placed upon the millstones will be so soft and without silica based structure that it will smear upon pressure between the stones and be worthless and so must be mixed with grains from other locations in order to be properly milled. When such manure-raised grain is used for beer it will hasten too quick fermentation and cause putrefaction. By extension, “the use of manure on feed lands will destroy the health of the animals that feed upon the grain produced there.” (Henzel, 1893, p.31)

In Henzel’s Bread From Stones, we encounter the roots of observation for the link between soil, agriculture and human physiology that Weston Price also expands upon in his career: Henzel’s observations teach him that different geologies create growing mediums with different vital forces, giving way for example to the spirit of a country’s horses and men. Granite soils rich in potassium give suppleness and durability. Calcareous, limey soils make for hard, dense bone structures and temperament like the denizens of the Jura Mountains. He cites what was in his time common knowledge, that wealthy English horsemen imported oat feeds from Hungary because, the “Carpathian Mountains of Hungary give grain rich in potassium with little lime, making their horses supple like the famed saddle horses of Hungary”; while for strength, the unsurpassed Norman draught horses drew their strong bones from the chalky French soils. “(Henzel, 1893, p.27) “And so we may comprehend how from earthy elements in combination with sugars and nitrogen, there can arise in endless modification, the most numerous varieties of vegetable [proteins] according as the soil furnishes various substances. But the carbonic acid, which lays the foundation out of which the hydrocarbons arise, must find basic [alkaline] substances, (potash, soda, lime, magnesia, etc.,) with which they can condense themselves into [physically] firm combinations. “(Henzel, 1893, p.63)

He reveals that in nature, silicic acid is quite soluble. It is found not only in parent rock materials, but also within “all hot spring waters in solution together with other substances from the primitive rocks.” (Henzel, 1893 p.49) Silicic acid (one grain dissolving in 1000 parts of water) is similar, as he notes, not to salt or sugar but to the solubility of lime (1 Grain in 800 parts of water). (p.49) Silicate bases may not, he points out, be soluble in the laboratory, but they are, however, “soluble before the cosmic forces of rain and the sun”. Silicates of bases are soluble, he explains, as is proven by their presence in all the grass blades and leaves. “They must have been soluble in solution within the sap of the plants to convey these nutrients to the periphery locations” (Henzel, 1893 p.49)

Practically speaking, Henzel insists that the finer the stone dust the more “energetically can the dissolving moisture of the soil and the oxygen and nitrogen of the air act upon it…Thence it follows that one single load of the very finest stone-meal will do as much as twenty loads of a coarser product, so that the cost for freight would amount to only one twentieth.” (Henzel, 1893p.54)

He concludes “the natural stone dust brings finer taste to fruits. Oil crops show more seed vessels and of more durable strength, pulses contain more lecithin-“nerve” substance, grasses and hay have increased nutritive value and grapes have sweeter fruit, stronger tendrils and are untouched by fungus and insects.” (Henzel, 1893 p.56)

“Moreover the soil is steadily built up and improved by this natural fertilizer, as it is progressively ‘normalized’, i.e. shows gathered together potassium, soda, lime, magnesium, fluorine, and phosphoric and sulphuric acid, etc., in the most favorable combination.” (Henzel, 1893 p.57)

 

After one hundred years, Henzel’s work was exhumed by John Hamakar (1914–1994) and Don Weaver who together authored Survival of Civilization  (Hamakar and Weaver 2002)(10) and began the movement now called Soil Remineralization (S.R). Remineralize the Earth, the not-for profit they started, continues Henzel’s work in promoting the use of rock meals and rock powders.

The “Remineralize” website makes five basic points:

1) Glacial moraine, metamorphic or igneous stone such as diabase, basalt, and rhyolites are highly recommended for application to improve soil qualities for agriculture and reforestation.

2) Mixtures of single rock types can be applied to soils to create a sustainable & superior alternative to the use of ultimately harmful chemical fertilizers, pesticides, & herbicides.

3) Soil Remineralization has been shown to achieve 4 fold increases in agricultural and forestry (wood volume) yields & to produce both immediate and long-term benefits from one application.

4). Most sedimentary rocks (limestone and dolomite) are used to balance pH and provide for calcium and magnesium deficiencies.

5) Hundreds of thousands of tons of appropriate rock dust for soil and forest regeneration are stockpiled by the gravel and stone industry.” (Remineralize the Earth.com)

As Henzel did, Hamaker explains how Liebig and modern chemical agriculture went wrong: “Chemical agriculture uses soluble chemicals which are either acidic or basic and which have the final effect of acidifying the soil, destroying the soil life, using up the organic matter, and finally rendering the soil useless. The primary reason that these things occur is that whatever chemicals are used on the soil act selectively, readily dissolving some stones while leaving others unaffected. In particular the silicate stones are unaffected. They form the bulk of the soil and contain elements useful to the life processes imbedded in a matrix of silicon dioxide, which is glass. Glass is not affected by the agricultural chemicals. (As we saw from the writing of Henzel). Therefore some elements are almost entirely removed from the soil and others are not made available. Most of the elements in the soil are used by the microorganisms in making enzymes. A shortage of elements means a shortage of enzymes. A shortage of enzymes means a shortage of compounds catalyzed by the enzymes, and hence malfunction of enzyme systems in all the life forms dependent on the soil mineral supply.” (Hamakar and Weaver, 2002,p.16) In this section of text, Hamaker and Weaver have delineated the crucial role of soil microbes. These microbes are in reality the missing proverbial link, which Liebig described in his awakening.

In 2012, when we speak of Henzel’s rock meals and Hamakar’s rock dusts we are speaking of what is available on store shelves as Azomite & Dessert Dymna-Min among others. Henzel and Hamakar’s rock meals/dusts can also be obtained from local rock quarries. And they can be divided into two primary types: rock-phosphates  (colloidal rock phosphate, hard rock phosphate) and non-phosphate rock meals (granite meal, gravel dusts, lime and green sand). Rock dusts of volcanic origin, because of their high silica value carry special importance. The most crucial aspect of this application is as Henzel indicated, that the particles be ground to a dust. Coarse sand or crumble consistency of material is not only 21 times the weight of the finer grade, but breaks down much more slowly making it available over time. Tiny particulate dust can be readily absorbed upon application. 2-20 lbs/ cubic yard for compost. Ideally the particulate size or “mesh” is 250 or greater, classifying the particle size as a “silt weight”. The more finely ground the rock, the more readily microorganisms will have access to the minerals. John Hamaker uses the term “gravel dust” to mean a dust “90% of which will pass through a 200-mesh screen.”(Hamakar, 2002)

Along the lines insisted upon by Henzel, Frenchman Joseph Kervran’s (1901-1983) (11) research on biological transmutations suggests that biological organisms all the way from microbes to mammals hold physiologies which are capable of taking an active role in modulating mineral elements found in nature to create needed materials where they are in short supply. While not just any mineral could be transformed into any other, minerals can be grouped according to their shape shifting qualities. As long as the biology within an organism is able to maintain itself within a neutral pH, it appears that this sort of transmutation within minerals of similar attributes is possible. As we have seen outlined by Hanzel, silica is crucial to the make-up of cell structure of both plants and animals. It is for instance, as we learned from Kervran’s research on biological transmutations with the presence of silica, that biological organisms (including both plants and humans) will modulate the production of calcium structures as needed.   In the Survival of Civilization Hamaker confirms that as long as the soil is neutral [in pH] or close to it, microorganisms will control what goes into the plant roots. These controls are off when the soil is acid or acidic chemicals are added. (Hamakar, 2002)  For this reason the proponents of the S.R. movement advisee that soil pH on a tract of land should be tested annually. For agricultural purposes if the land tests acid, some of those now using rock dusts advocate adding a small quantity of agricultural lime to bring the soil toward neutral pH. But as Henzel noted 179 years ago, this is a counter productive approach as the harsh quality of the lime will destroy the humus producing capacity of all of the soils [& beneficial microbes] over time. And as even Hamaker maintains, lime is definitely verboten for the forest floor, which depends upon its humus- making biological processes for its regeneration. But Hamaker was to leave, unanswered, the question of how to bring alkalinity to the poisoned forest floor.

 

                            Liebig’s missing link:

Deforestation destroyed the native habitats of beneficial microbes, killing beneficial microbial life. Microbes are often very specialized in their functions and ambient location requirements. When we instead work with them and foster these beneficial microbes that are already trying with their chemical synergies to hold a given biosphere together, then we have success with growing our food and forests.

The ancient Hawaiian peoples for example understood and also harnessed the power of the natural forest elements for their intensive-high-production farming strategies: Hawaiians would go maulka (up the mountain) to gather leaves from forested areas above their loi (water gardens where they grew Kalo (taro)). They then used these forest leaves to cover the soil of their loi and the loi were allowed to lie fallow and rest for a time before they were again planted. This method worked for the Hawaiians who had phenomenal productivity from their ancient field systems. And theses methods still work. (Handy & Handy, 1991)(12)

K. Cho presents a method he calls Korean Natural Farming (KNF). As did the Hawaiians, KNF approaches agriculture and reforestation through mutually supportive encouragement of beneficial microbes. I outline many of his microbe-supportive methods below but one cornerstone to his system is the KNF culturing and disbursal of indigenous microbes found within the leaf litter of upper elevation forests. Leaves and forest litter are gathered, cultured & brought to planting sites to increase soil vitality. He calls these cultures of indigenous microbes IMO’s. These beneficial native microbes, especially when gleaned from an area of elevation of 600-1000 feet higher than where one is farming or planting trees, have been shown to remediate poisoned soil and water, make nutrients available for plants and animals of the given biosphere, restore forest health, and yield delicious food with markedly denser nutrient panels. These KNF agriculture systems use 40-60% less water and produce 2-4 times the quantity of food by volume. As these methods are free of agricultural and industrial residues they leave nothing in their wake other than higher and wider beneficial nutrient spectrums with each year that the methods are utilized.  These methods also build topsoil. They also are effectuated free of store bought amendments. KNF revolves around the restoration of endemic microbes and gives rise to many novel methods to  “maximize” the inborn potentials of, as Master Cho says, “ the nature”.  They are low input, no or low till methods. They are applied for agricultural and animal husbandry processes, for reforestation, afforestation, as well as for water reclamation on land and at sea.

We now realize that the leaves the Hawaiians were bringing down from the forest would have been rich with microbes and other unseen materials found within the leaf litter of the forest floor. The ancient Hawaiian culture’s tremendously innovative and productive food systems worked by feeding nature first as we now may learn to do.

For example, where three other reforestation teams had tried and failed to establish reforestation projects in the extreme Gobi desert, Korean Natural Farming methods alone have had 97% survival rates. In every case, Cho first inoculated the soil with native microbes (IMO’s) from a slightly higher local elevation. Planted with crop companions of watermelon, corn and grain for livestock feed, his reforestation trees in his Gobi desert project are growing to 20 feet in three years. (Prell, 2010)(13)

KNF methods of animal husbandry prevent the run-off of toxic effluent while replacing foul anaerobic fermentation odors with a sweet, woodsy smell indicative of alkaline forming beneficial aerobic microbe proliferation in the area of, and surrounding, animal living quarters. This was evidenced in China when, in the months before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing city, the army, while preparing the city for order during the Olympic game visitor influx, brought their piggeries to the city in order to feed themselves. The inhabitants of the city were “assaulted by the smell of pig waste, protesting violently”. (Prell, 2010) The head of the Chinese army had heard of KNF methods and he sent to Korea to seek assistance from Master Cho. When he subsequently, during the Olympics, employed KNF methods for his city piggery, KNF piggery practices saved the day. The smell disappeared and the populace was mollified.

1) IMO. At the core of the method is the culturing of diverse indigenous microbes including:  bacterial, fungal, ambient Lactic acid, local nitrogen fixing azobacters, and disease suppressing actinomyces. These microbes are gathered in forest and bamboo grove areas, proliferated upon rice and then expanded through five steps to a point where they are incorporated into soil and compost preparations. Following the application of these microbes to the soil a cover of straw mulch is placed to ensure 75% shade, 65% moisture. This cover also keeps sun off the soil in order to keep temperatures low. IMO’s are used for reforestation, agricultural croplands and as the cornerstone of KNF animal husbandry.

 

2) KNF cultures ambient Lactic acid bacteria and employs them for purifying fresh water, aquaculture systems, polluted ocean water and to mop up oil spills. This preparation is also called “Lacto” and it too is a cornerstone of the KNF technique.  “Lacto” microbes in liquid suspension activate many of the other agricultural liquid preps, as their biological nature seems to pull the components of the preparations into effective synergistic uses. Interestingly Lacto also has countless uses for human health. Very alkalinizing, it appears to rebalance the beneficial microbes within the human biological system: It is a Digestive tonic, tooth tonic, lung tonic and cleaning solution for acidic or poisoned soils.

 

3) KNF also pioneers fermented enzyme-nutrient tonics designed specifically to feed IMO’s: for example a mugwort (Artemesia vulgaris) ferment which brings iron synergizing compounds to sickly plants and animals; a dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) ferment which brings manganese and other enzymatic compounds to plants and human health. There are also preparations with specific hormonal/enzymatic regulating functions, among others Purslane, (Portulaca oleracea), provides omega 3 fatty acids, and synergizing elements and fermented flowers and fruit tonics are made to bring on flowering and the fertility of fruiting plants.

4) Master Cho also addresses our familiar NPK “supply the demand” paradigm. KNF produces preparations to supply nitrogen.  Bio-available, low residue phosphorus is derived from a preparation made from sesame stems. Phosphorus, as water-soluble calcium phosphate, and water-soluble calcium are made for application to crops & farm animals through vinegar titrations of heat-treated bone materials and organic shells respectively. As Liebig noted, these elements are integral to the health of the reproductive cycles of plants and animals but as KNF demonstrates, the isolated elements must be supported with a full spectrum of minerals and enzyme potentiators like those found in IMO microbes and the KNF fermented nutrient tonics, which feed microbes. And if used in isolation, specific nutrients supplied to meet demand must be timed exactly according to when they are needed in that specific plant’s or animal’s life cycle and not a moment later.

 

5) Korean Natural farming also incorporates Biochar, as was done between 450B.C. and A.D.950 within Tera Mulata of the ancient Tera Preta systems of the Amazon basin. (Glaser & Bruno, 2007) (14) Biochar consists of using low-temperature charcoal incorporated into the soil in small to high concentrations. Biochar fosters microbial life. Master Cho refers to it as a New York City for microbes, open all day & night, full of connections & places to explore in all sorts of weather.  Soils containing Biochar are less prone to nutrient leaching, which is crucial in the tropics. Because the microbes in soils containing Biochar are so well provided for, these soils tend to be self-replenishing, thus addressing the problem of disappearing topsoils.

 

6) In Korea where he developed the unaltered form of this method, Master Cho relies upon rice chaff (high in silica) for the sealing of his vessels as the chaff allows the preparations, which are living substances, to breathe. Likewise he uses chaff for animal bedding as it (again, being silica rich) fosters the health of the beneficial microbes. He also uses both whole rice grain and bamboo leaves (high in silica) as a feed for his new born chicks to maximize the toughness of their inherent natures (!)

7) And from the fermentation process fostered by beneficial microbes, rice itself is made into his premier alkalinizing substance, rice vinegar, an alkalinizing synergizer.  Like lacto, it is used as a sort of synergizer for the mixtures of the various preps within the scope of the KNF system.

Here we return to the unanswered need posited by Hamakar and the Soil Remineralization movement: acidic forest floors are a perfect application site for KNF’s use of IMO, lacto, and brown rice vinegar for the alkalinizing of pH, and the enzyme tonics can be further used to actually boost the health of the microbes responsible for “building the forest floor over time”. I posit that these preparations will bring fortitude to the rock dust digesting, humus producing microbes of the forest floor as they coincidentally move the pH of the soils there into the alkaline range.

 

8) KNF makes a special alkalinizing and nourishing tonic beneficial to the silica rich body and biology of the honeybee. It can be used as an aerial spray and it can be set out in little feeding stations to nourish the bees on demand. In private personal work I have seen this concentration to be salubrious for bee colonies.

 

9) KNF uses ocean water to return land nutrients lost to the sea by run off and leaching processes. Cho gathers Ocean water and then mixes it with the Lacto prep. Allowed to interact, this synergized solution is then applied to soils before planting. The results: superior plant hardiness, increased flavor, brighter color, two to three times the size and the shelf life after harvest. Ocean water is also applied to animal pastures and has been very well received by livestock.

Beyond NPK: Paranormal elements of life and agriculture.

Korean Natural Farming’s utilization of silica rich rice straw & chaff, mulches, & Ocean water invokes a return to the full panel of unseen minerals lost to the world of agriculture through leaching, erosion and applications of excess manures and chemical fertilizers. Even in this “modern” age Cho instructs that containers are to be made out of clay pottery (ground up rock) and lidded with rice straw (silica again) to “contain and to protect” the qualities within the KNF ferments and preparations.

Intimations of the power of working with nature, the beneficial microbes and the actual mineral substances of the earth to increase the vitality and restorative power of Earth were also pioneered in 1800’s by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in the method he called Biodynamics. This method, outlined in Steiner’s book entitled Agriculture (15), also turns to silica preparations to enliven the vitality of the soil: For the soil compost pile a specific preparation is made of oak leaves (high in silica), while an aerial spray of ground quartz crystal is used to bring greater energy and capacity to tracts of forest, farm and pasture lands. Furthermore, as Cho turns to specific herbs for specific micronutrient tonics, Steiner promoted burying specific plant materials within the earth to focus their potency and to meld them with the earth forces. According to both Cho and Steiner, creating tonics specifically meant to nourish the health of the “earth forces”, a part of which we might call the beneficial microbes, in turn nourishes the subtle energies of the foods the Earth can then produce. Since Steiner’s life and work became public, in response many across the earth have pioneered various compost teas and compost tea methods and machines and serious advances in topsoil production are being demonstrated globally from such methods. There is much exploring to be done in this realm, as it appears to hold tremendous potential for sequestering carbon and restoring ecological balance to the earth.

Silica seems to hold a special place of synergy within this work. And this was noted in Steiner’s creation of his horsetail tea, which invokes the use of silica at micro-dilution to be sprayed over huge areas of land in order to potentiate the working of his other compost tea sprays. As we learned from Henzel, Hamakar and Weaver “In reality we cannot find a root, a stem, a leaf , or a fruit which does not contain silicic acid.” Nitrogen is unnecessary as a fertilizer if the soil contains a “suffieciency of fixed basic substances [ alkalies and alkaline earths ] (Henzel, 1893,p. 57) and high nutrient volcanic particulates”. We remember Henzel’s special mention of the waters high in Silicic acid “& other things” of hot springs. We moreover see the emphasis which both Cho and Steiner place upon Silicic types of forces, whether they be of organic nature as in rice straw, bamboo, grass or oak leaves or inorganic form in the form of quartz crystal as in Steiner’s 501 quartz spray.

Within the silicate rich water of hot springs, rock dusts, and within Master Cho’s ocean waters, can be found a mysterious group of precious and non-precious metals whose electrons are re-arranged and in a high velocity state such that they no longer participate in chemical reactions. The term for them, Ormus (formerly Ormes), was originally chosen by David Hudson, who has pioneered the understanding of these elements since the late 70’s. Ormes stands for Orbitally Rearranged Mono-atomic Elements. The electrons of these elements appear to be highly charged forms of their usual metallic states, which, in this mono-atomic form, spin at a very high frequency. To be considered metallic, an atom must be able to bond to other atoms of the same element. As the electrons of each Ormus atom pair up only with themselves in “Cooper pairs”, no longer are they in a metallic state. Originally it was thought that each of these existed only in a mono-atomic state (Cooper-paired electrons are not available as typical valence electrons and therefore do not form molecular bonds). BUT it is now found that at least some of these “Monoatomic elements” will participate in weak di-atomic bonding, especially with (here it is again) alkaline materials: In fact, all Ormus elements have an affinity to silica and can be found wherever we find silica in high concentrations in nature.

Ormus forms of Gold, Iridium, Rhodium, Palladium, Platinum, Copper, Magnesium, Calcium, Cobalt, Nickel, Ruthenium, Mercury, Nickel, Silver, Osmium, and Rhenium have all been found. More may yet be discovered. They each behave in a paranormal fashion, acting unpredictably as a gas, a liquid, or a semi-solid iridescent powder, depending upon the circumstances. In the lab, Ormus elements have shown to operate as superconductors. Their behavior under research is unpredictable among some of their unusual characteristics; they can actually disappear, gain and loose their mass, and move through glass.

It is also apparent that they each have different characteristics, which they impart to the health and constitution of the cells of plants and animals when they are present. Ormus elements appear to be in high concentrations within the silicon rich structure of the honeybee. In all cases the behavior of these Ormus elements is mysterious:

“The Cooper-pairing of the electrons in these atoms or diatoms appears to create a Meissner effect around each atom/diatom unit.  This Meissner effect provides a non-local quantum connection between other nearby Ormus units so that together they exhibit behavior, which follows the rules of quantum mechanics.  If you have great piles of these monatomic/diatomic units you can observe quantum physical behavior at classical physics scales. This postulated behavior would account for the observed properties of superconductivity, tunneling, superfluidity and difficulty of spectroscopic identification.  Superconductors can exhibit paramagnetic or diamagnetic properties depending on how much energy they are storing. The Meissner effect and another phenomenon connected with superconductivity, called Josephson tunneling, have been observed in biological systems by various scientists over the years.”(Barry Carter) (16)

“For several biological systems involving nerve or growth processes, the square of the activation energy is a linear function of temperature over a moderate range of physiological temperatures. This behavior may be predicted from the hypothesis that single electron tunneling between micro-regions of superconductivity controls the rate of biological process.

Superconductivity has been observed. [Within the human biology] It’s responsible for nerve and growth processes.” (15) (Barry Carter, “Ormus and Paramagnetic soils” here citing David Hudson’s use of this reference.) (15)

In the scientific calculations it has been conclusively found that 5% of the brain of pigs & cows is made of equal parts of Ormus state iridium and rhodium. As Hamakar wrote  “Studies have been reported by behavioral researchers relating the quantity and kinds of brain compounds to behavioral variations from the normal. Whether or not those compounds are present in normal amounts depends on the proper function of numerous enzyme systems, which are involved in the fabrication of all the body production, maintenance, and control systems. Whether or not there is an adequate supply of enzymes present depends on the food supply. In particular, it depends on an adequate soil mineral supply in the food, because it has been observed by microphysicists that the soil elements are required in the enzyme molecules. All of this has been established by direct laboratory methods.” (Hamakar, 2002)

Coming back again to Weston Price and the link between healthy soil and a wide panel of nutrients and health. We can conclude that if soils are deficient in humus, as they now are, they will be correspondently deficient in silicates and thus deficient in these Ormus elements. Ironically Liebig’s law of the minimum has returned. Its meaning points the way to honoring the obscure minerals and soil substances overlooked by modern agriculture.

Norman Walker, N.D. (Walker, 1978)(16) addressed such dietary mineral insufficiencies through his vegetable juice concentrates. He found tremendous success in curing cancers through extensive periods of fasting upon organically grown (only organically grown seemed to work) carrot juice. Over the last 20 years, Hudson’s research proved rhodium to have extreme cancer transformative powers, turning cancerous cells normal again. Carrots are loaded with rhodium.

Likewise, each of the Ormus state minerals appears to fill a different function within the body and, we infer, upon the life processes upon earth. Hudson discovered that these mysterious Ormus state elements are at least 7,000 times more prevalent than their metallic forms. In fact, they are present to some extent in any body of natural water and in any soil, but especially (here it is again) in volcanic soils with a high concentration of silicates, in the waters of Rock Springs of volcanic origin, they can also be found in the tissues of wild plants and some cultivated raw fruits vegetables.

And, in fact, since experiments upon plants are infinitely cheaper than experiments upon humans, Ormus is now in use within a tiny group of the agricultural world. Results of its use promise to offer help in reforestation and offsetting the effects of global warming. (Taylor, 2007) Ormus has shone miraculous growth production in all the plants that have received it.  Walnuts the size of apples on trees which, though planted from the same nursery stock were twice the size of the controls which received no Ormus. Oranges the size of cantaloupes. Just as we found with Master Cho’s alkalinizing, microbe supportive methods and specifically with his application of lactic acid fermented ocean water, here we see sweeter produce with earlier maturation, better shelf life, less need for other amendments, and possessing greater resilience to pests. The size of the fruits is of mythic proportion. Additionally, unlike excess applications of chemicals, which lock up nutrients as salts, these methods improve the soil over time: “food yields and plant size further increase during the second and subsequent years after treatment.”(Taylor, 2007)

“Treating large areas of land could thus have immense benefits in offsetting global warming. One imagines spraying large areas, especially forests, from airplanes.” (Taylor, 2007)

All of this needs more research, as is obvious. But over the past millennia as we have pulled the protective skin of leaf litter off of the face of the Earth, our soils have become depleted and poisoned: both beneficial mutualist microbes and minerals have been lost from erosion and our other land practices many of which have left toxic-residue laced soils.  Even those now working to remediate toxic residues, using the finest organic methods, are still working soil with fewer minerals than were present in the ancient groves. When one sees the size, color, and caliber of the vegetables produced with Ormus methods and with Korean Natural Farming practices, it becomes clear that there are innovative methods to restoring the planet and our food production systems. The benefits of these methods extend not only to food production but also to use in reforestation p to boost carbon sequestering and conservation methodology. As Taylor, PhD writes: “There is no call to wait for such [confirmation] before making use of these discoveries. The growth of the world population is inexorable, at the same time; the area of arable land is limited. If it is possible to increase food production by even two times with this very cheap sea water concentrate, then abundance would replace the starvation which otherwise looms over us. And even without Ormus as a direct supplement for humans, [through its use in agricultural soils] human health would be greatly enhanced. Furthermore ocean water cannot be patented.” (Taylor, 2007)

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                                                        Conclusion

Remineralization through the use of rock dust, ocean water, and Ormus solution and compost teas restores to deforested and agricultural lands the wide spectrum of nutrients and energetic potential found in ancient soil profiles. In response to Price’s admonishings back in the 1940’s, a synergy of these methods might not only restore the Earth but also improve health statistics for humanity while enhancing the spirit-connection between humanity and the planet through raising the content of brain function enhancing nutrients in our food, which just may in turn affect humanity’s capacity for reasoning, clear thought processes, and ethical synergy.

Each of these movements, KNF and others making indigenous microbe rich compost teas, the Soil Remineralization proponents and those exploring Ormus precipitate, leverages community participation in the co-creation of preparations for sharing and distribution, thus creating an ethos of belonging, the capacity to effect beneficial change, and the responsibility to do so. Strong community with high goals and a sense of purpose creates the strong ethical comportments, which proceed from & in turn create sound ethics.

As we now realize, the foundation of sustainability is ethics. If ethics can be defined as a discipline dealing with choosing what is good & bad & with moral duty & obligation, sound ethics must lie at the root of a humanity who would now be wise enough to act in time to shift our agricultural and reforestation movements toward environmentally sound paradigms. If it is true, as it appears, that current agricultural practices are responsible for the mineral deficient food we now harvest, then as we can infer from the work of Hanamaker, they may also be compromising our biological processes including those physiological processes which govern reasoning and the physiology of our discernment processes.

One wonders: What if we were to nourish microbes with preparations as pioneered in KNF in order that they be strengthened & made resilient as they were in the primal forests. What if instead of growing most all of our foodstuffs in open fields we were to grow certain forest compatible crops and medicinal plants in concert with tree agroforestry and edible foodstuff producing tree canopies so that the primal connection between humanity, the trees and their deep-digging roots, and our food crops were renewed. And then, what if these Ormus state elements; in synergy with silica rich powders from straw or rock were given to the beneficial microbes of our agricultural zones and compost piles, and, as imagined by Taylor, sprayed over our forests and animal grazing sites as well as those open fields which have over the recent centuries been growing the majority of our food staples. With such aerial spraying, of Ormus, Steiner’s silica spray, compost teas of myriad sorts including Cho’s complimentary microbe nourishing teas, even the health of our silicate rich bees might be affected positively, (the intention of both Rudolph Steiner in Biodynamics and of Master Cho in Korean Natural Farming). Perhaps our entire global ecology would blossom abundantly & the food grown within it, more mineral and nutrient dense would be so nourishing that humanity’s brains would respond. We have all heard stories of ancient peoples and even primitive peoples still living in accord with nature and having what we now consider to be paranormal mental capacities. Dare we imagine what might happen were we to powerfully remineralize and enrich the foodstuffs of “civilized  humanity” ? What has now come to be “civilized humanity’s” ethics, reasoning processes and even spiritual awareness might be all the wiser for it.