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#203 How to Use EM to Fundamentally Solve the Problem of Agricultural Residue Burning

#203 How to Use EM to Fundamentally Solve the Problem of Agricultural Residue Burning
Soaking rice straw in EM solution to make compost (Myanmar)
Soaking rice straw in EM solution to make compost (Myanmar)
Rice straw after harvesting often used to be burned in the field, but since the mid-1980s when EM began to spread in Japan, it has been possible to decompose it without burning it by using EM, and since then it has spread as a method for accelerating the decomposition of many types of harvest residue.

Recently, adding 0.1-0.5% of EM rectified charcoal or salt to the organic matter you want to be decomposed and applying 50-100 liters of EM per 10 ares of soil can quickly make the soil more fertile.

In a TV interview in Thailand about forty years ago I explained that EM can completely solve the problem of residue burning, and we implemented it as a King Project on 200 hectares of land owned by the Nature Farming Center in Saraburi, Thailand. The results this project have steadily spread to other areas of the country, and as awareness of carbon dioxide issues has increased, open-field burning has become extremely rare.
Myanmar, a neighbor of Thailand, has been using EM for more than thirty years, and as the use of EM has become more diversified, with excellent results, EM is becoming applied much more widely throughout the nation. Below is report from September 2024 about how GIF, a British Nonprofit investment fund, has invested in Myanmar with the goal of preventing the practice of open-field burning and advanced the recycling of harvest residue. This project is being implemented by a public institution, and we look forward to seeing how it develops in the future.

GIF makes its first investment in Myanmar

 
Next is a report on developments in India. There are articles about effective use of organic matter and harvest residues by using EM, and its application in crop rotation, and the content of these articles indicates a considerable increase in the understanding of EM. In India, national research institutes are also proactively taking up EM, and it is now being used widely not only in agriculture, but also as a method to fundamentally solve environmental problems.
The following are some examples.

Organic farming innovations: EMs transforming crop rotation & residue management
Courtesy of Ecopure

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