Harvesting the Sun - an important video from Ragmans Farm
The first video in English of Jairo Restrepo, a world expert in Biofertilisers and soil regeneration, filmed at Ragmans Lane Farm.
Jairo talks about the wonders of cow manure, soil microbes, trace elements, and their link with increased soil, plant and human health.
He describes industrial agriculture as a 'dishonest agriculture' robbing us of our health and proposes an alternative productive approach harnessing the power of biological mineral ferments which will allow all of us to grow cheap organic food through enhanced photosynthesis - by Harvesting the Sun.
We made this video because we believe that the work of Jairo Restrepo, long recognised in South America, is relatively unknown in the UK. There is plenty of material on the internet of him teaching in Spanish, but very little in other languages, so we filmed an interview with him last summer and have edited it down for release.
He is a leading teacher and practitioner in the application of technologies such as bokashi, biofertilser, native microbe ferments and the use of trace elements for soil bioremediation. These enable farmers at any scale to produce the fertility they need within their own farms and gardens. He teaches at Ragmans once a year in the summer, leading students through the science of his techniques, and also making about 15 different preparations.
His book The ABC of Organic Agricultureis a classic and has recently been translated into English, and is available through the website.
We believe that mineral and biological ferments could have a enormous impact in revitalising our soils and consequently our health. Juanfran Lopez researched the use of these products at Ragmans. Further information about this work can be found here in the section describing our approach to Organic Agriculture.
Our Approach to Soil Fertility and System Health ~ by Matt Dunwell
February 15th 2017 POSTED BY: Ragmans Farm
Ragmans Farm is a 60 acre organic farm
in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. We use farming practices that
regenerate the land, using permaculture as a guiding design principle. Between the three
main enterprises at the farm – Ragmans Lane Farm, the Willow Bank and Ragmans
Market Garden, we provide employment for about 8 people.
Ragmans Lane Farm has eight acres of
organic apples and we make our own brand of apple juice. We also host a series of courses throughout the year on land related
issues.
A course led by Jairo Restrepo in 2015 introduced us to a new philosophy of system health, based on building
healthy soils. This had a profound
effect on the farm, and led us to set up a full time research post to develop
these principles for temperate climate agriculture. Our research manager, Juanfran Lopez, is half way into a three year programme and this blog is predominantly about his
work here at Ragmans.
Our research goal is to gain expertise in making soil
amendment preparations. We will then measure the effectiveness of these
biological techniques on system biology and mineral balance on plant-soil
health and growth. Over the last twelve months we have put in place a series of
soil and plant tests and taken baseline data.
We are testing for pH, salinity, conductivity, a wide
range of trace elements and also available nitrogen. In addition to this, we
are developing a high quality range of preparations and techniques such as
biofertilisers, aerobic teas, mineral chelations, mychorriza, chromatography,
lactic acid bacteria, and native microorganism reproduction among other
methods….
The objective of this practice is to reproduce the local
microbiology, as bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae and protozoa working in
a complete harmony in a healthy environmental system (forest, farm or even animal
and human system).
Whilst it is tempting to
try to produce a range of products for sale, we are wary of claims that certain
microbe mixes are ‘silver bullets’ to be used in the same way as chemical
fertilisers or herbicides.
We believe it is more important
to get a good understanding of the science behind this approach, and then for
farmers to tweak them into individual requirements or situations, thereby
having a positive impact on the farmer´s autonomy and viability and hopefully reaching
a broader scale.
An example of how we can work
through these preparations can be seen at Ragmans currently. We have in the past sampled our soils and
found them lacking in certain trace elements.
A conversation with any good soil lab will furnish you with the trace
elements needed, normally in the form of salts – magnesium sulphate etc. These
are supplied and put out onto the land with a spreader.
The addition of trace elements
in this way can be ineffective as both the soil and plant are looking for
elements in a bioactive form – ie easily digestible. For this reason sometimes
the addition of trace elements can be disruptive and almost always there is
waste.
When we make biofertiliser on
the farm we build a biologically active system using fresh cow manure that has
the gut flora and fauna of a ruminant. To this we add various ingredients –
including molasses, yeast, native microbes from the forest soil. A ferment takes place into which we can
place trace elements in minute quantities over a period of three or four
months. These minerals are cycled
through countless generations of microbes becoming more and more biologically
available.
When the preparation is ready
we spray onto the leaves and soil thereby feeding the system through the plants
that in turn will feed soil microbes with essential micro nutrients.
This is a basic example of our
approach as taught by Jairo Restrepo. We are only beginning to understand the
potential of natural agriculture, and there is very little knowledge at all of
this work in temperate systems.
We are also running a six day
course with Jairo at Ragmans from June 29th to July 4th 2017. Jairo's book 'The ABC of Organic Agriculture' is now available in English from our on-line shop.