Crops Get Morning Sickness Too

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang, Founder of Korean Natural Farming (Janong)

Master Cho spoke Korean, with an interpreter. We translated every Korean line again and checked it, so you read what he said, not only what the room heard.

Members watch every session

The whole seminar, as it happened, with the checked English beside the video. Membership is $60 a year.

Become a member Sign in

This part runs from 25:44 to 41:38 of the session video. Keep watching and the next part plays on.

From the Korean saying 'a good field bears healthy children', Cho moves to pregnancy and morning sickness as his picture of a body asking for what it needs. Then he turns it on the farm: pigs, cows, chickens, papaya, mango and tomato have their own morning sickness and cycles, and corn bears its ears for its own young, not for us.

What he taught

The lesson

What does Cho mean when he says crops get morning sickness?

The setting

Still Thursday morning, same flip chart as the page before. Cho uses pregnancy as his picture of a body's changing needs and questions the room, then applies it to livestock and crops. Nothing is held up and no slides are shown.

Key points

  1. Korean saying: the field has to be good to bear healthy children.

    A 'healthy field' is a healthy mother's body; her health counts if it bears a baby well. Cho uses it as the bridge from soil to the life cycle.

    ▶ 25:44 As spoken

  2. Cho's picture: a craving is the body asking; a nutrient picked by analysis is the head asking.

    'What you crave is what the body wants; what you like by analysis is what the head wants.' He turns the picture on crops and livestock below.

    ▶ 29:56 As spoken

  3. Follow what the body wants: that is the real thing.

    The interpreter: 'follow what body wants, not what we think.'

    ▶ 30:40 As spoken

  4. Pigs, cows, papaya, mango and tomato all go through 'morning sickness'.

    Cho: 'Is it only people?' and names them. Mango is a likely reading of an unclear word.

    ▶ 37:16 As spoken

  5. Pigs, chickens, papaya and mango have their own cycles too, 'from microbes to every living thing'.

    Cho uses 생리 (menstruation) for the reproductive cycle of livestock and crops; only natural farmers think this way, he says.

    ▶ 37:37 As spoken

  6. A famous professor called Cho crazy for saying crops have cycles like this.

    Cho then asked him whether corn bears its ears for people to eat.

    ▶ 38:40 As spoken

  7. Corn bears its ears to raise its own children, not for people to eat.

    People cut in and take them. The interpreter: 'stealing from the crop.'

    ▶ 39:38 As spoken

  8. Putting humans first is self-righteousness and arrogance.

    Cho asks whether man is the lord of creation who shows it love.

    ▶ 41:19 As spoken

Hold it loosely
  • Most of this page is about human pregnancy: Cho says morning sickness is the growing baby's bones asking for calcium phosphate and that a daughter should get it before marriage. These are not tested and we don't repeat them as advice.
  • The crop side is only named here (who has a 'morning sickness'); what to give the crop at that stage comes later in the seminar and in Cho's books.
  • Some Korean around 2155-2166, 2315 and 2406 could not be recovered.
For your farm
  • Crops and livestock change what they need as they move toward bearing young; watch for that turn.
  • Corn and fruit are the plant's offspring: the plant is feeding its young, and you take a share.

What the room didn't hear

Where the English in the room left out or changed what Master Cho said in Korean.

  • ▶ 37:16

    The room heard All the livestock, all the plants, fruits, they have a morning sickness.

    Cho said Pigs do it too, cows, papaya, mango, tomato, all of them.

    The interpreter dropped the crops and animals Cho named.

  • ▶ 41:19

    The room heard So people always think about their health first.

    Cho said It is the self-righteousness and arrogance of people who put humans first.

    Cho blamed human-centredness, not concern for health.

Next to Master Cho's books

  • Agrees

    Crops have a 'morning sickness' at the changeover His 2003 book says plants get 'morning sickness' at flower-bud differentiation, that the changeover treatment answers it, and that sour things and calcium phosphate are good for it. Here he gives only the human picture and names the crops.

    Cho, Janong Natural Farming (2003), p. 79

  • Agrees

    Same picture in his teaching posters The CGNF posters say plants also experience morning sickness just before flower-bud formation, when nutrients are drawn off by the growing offspring.

    CGNF posters (Korean) (English translation), p. 3

“What the body wants is the real thing.”

▶ 30:40

“Corn bears its ears to raise its own children, not for people to eat.”

▶ 39:38

In this part

  1. 25:44A good field, a healthy mother
  2. 27:12Morning sickness: what the body wants (health claims)
  3. 32:06Bone first: the calcium phosphate story (health claims)
  4. 37:11Crops and livestock get morning sickness too
  5. 38:35Corn fruits for its own children

Transcript

English translation, checked against the Korean as spoken.