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1. Understanding organic farming inputs
Once farming began on the Korean Peninsula millennia ago, everybody
used organic farm inputs. Our ancestors knew that as crops grew,
they sucked
out nutrients from the soil so something needed to be added back in to supple-
ment it. ese wise people developed know-how that made best use of anything
that was nearby; moreover, it was low-cost and efficacious. is system of agri-
culture that evolved for thousands of years became the backbone of our tradi-
tional farming. en came the chemical fertilizers and pesticides. We were
completely dazzled by them. Yet, after 40 or 50 years,
we realized the problems
of exploitive chemical agriculture and tried to go back to organic. Shockingly,
nobody seems to remember that we had been organic all along. Organic farm-
ing is nothing new to us; it is still vivid in some of our memories. Let us look at
organic farming not as something new and special but as something of a con-
tinuation of what has been practiced all along. We need only to add a few
things on the backbone prepared by our ancestors. If you are a farmer over 50,
you will ind that JADAM system is not really new.
What our ancestors used for farming were things
easily available and cheap,
and of course they were all “organic.” However, nowadays organic farming in-
puts have become something expensive and hard to get; something difficult to
make; something that requires extensive use of machinery. I am not rejecting
science; as science advances, agriculture will change. e world of organic farm-
ing inputs can also go through a change. But the point I am making is that all
these developments are heading to a direction where
they raise the cost and give
more inancial burden to the farmers. As practicing organic farming and or-
ganic food become more expensive, more people are turning away from it. Or-
ganic farming is no longer sustainable; it is sustained only through the
purchasing power of the very few rich people.
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Principles of Making Organic Farming Inputs
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Conventional agricultural practices contaminated the soil to such an extent
that the soil can no longer tolerate any more chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Organic farming was introduced as an alternative,
but the system of organic
farming was too expensive and too complicated to replace chemical farming.
Now is the time for a fundamental change in organic farming. Organic farming
has to become easier, more effective, and less costly than conventional farming.
If this cannot be done, there will be no future for organic farming. After
decades of struggle, JADAM established a system that achieves these goals. Why
did organic farming become so expensive? Certainly, organic farming as prac-
ticed by our ancestors did not need money at all. First,
farm inputs are being
bought instead of made. Second, the process of making of farm inputs itself
has been changed into something costly. It is JADAM’s aim to change the
farming practice of buying inputs to making inputs; change the process of
input-making ultra-low-cost. In JADAM system, even pesticides, which no
farmers could dare dream of making on their own, can be made at home at a
very low cost. As you will see, such change is not even that difficult because
we already have most of the answers in the wisdom of our traditional agricul-
ture. JADAM only made small improvements to make it easier. I personally
believe that modern organic farming inputs are inferior to our ancestors’ in
terms of nutrition, economy and science. Knowledge prevalent today are anti-
nature, anti-technology and anti-farmer. They only serve the interests of the
businessmen. Today’s organic farming is a tragic manifestation of what hap-
pens when commercialism takes over farming.
JADAM is trying to reverse this. We should re-examine these high-cost, in-
effective organic farming inputs and the methods of their making. e tradi-
tional method has much to offer. We have wonderful ideas about how organic
farming inputs ought to be. But bear in mind that prevailing notions have been
forced on us in the last couple of decades. Changing our ideas is the irst, the
most important and difficult step to take. If we cannot discard these highly er-
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JADAM Organic Farming
roneous
concepts, we will not be able to produce ultra-low-cost farming inputs.
Technology that does not serve farmers and farming should be discarded. Tech-
nology that has no economic value should be discarded. Technology that does
not help farmers earn money should be discarded. When publicly criticized
about changes to his economic theories, John Maynard Keynes, a genius, left a
famous saying, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do,
sir?” When
you ind a wrong, you should correct it immediately. What JADAM
is about to explain will be radically different from what you have learnt and ac-
cepted as a norm. Methods will be completely different. But do bear in mind
that actually these methods were the norm only 40-50 years ago.
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