No. 37　EM Application Against Foot-and-Mouth Disease in South Korea

When I mentioned about the EM application to prevent avian influenza and human influenza in the beginning of my last post, I also talked about the foot-and-mouth disease that is escalating in South Korea. As of December, the number of livestock slaughtered was about 400,000, but in January it had increased to over 1,900,000. January 16th was especially bad, and resulted in burying 212,274 animals in one day. Generally speaking, infected livestock are first slaughtered before being buried, but in the case of South Korea they cannot keep up with the slaughtering due to massive volume, so they are burying the animals alive.

In the United Kingdom, both BSE (commonly known as mad-cow disease) and foot-and-mouth disease spread at the same time between the years 1998 and 2000. The number of slaughtered cattle reached five million resulting in major incineration, and even the military had to be involved. The farming area was covered by the smell of oil and grilled meat. Around that time, I gave a talk at an EM Seminar held at Royal Agricultural College, the world's oldest agricultural college, where Prince Charles is the honorary president. At that lecture, I stated that it was possible to counter BSE and foot-and-mouth disease with the use of EM, but no one would believe it. The Royal Agricultural College concentrates mainly on the training of potential farmers for organic agriculture, and they continue to conduct EM research still to this day. We are starting to see the possibility that this institution could become the center for promoting EM in the UK in the near future.

The successful efforts to prevent the further spread of foot-and-mouth disease with the use of EM in Miyazaki Prefecture last year was officially reported to the EM promoters in South Korea. However, most of them doubted the effects at first. After getting several inquiries about it at the end of the year and in the beginning of the New Year, they quickly turned to using EM as a countermeasure for the disease. At each of the EM conferences and seminars that were held annually until three years ago in South Korea, I would emphasize the essence of using EM in livestock operations in order to counter pollution and to promote organic agriculture. At the same time, I would also state that EM is effective as a countermeasure against foot-and-mouth disease and avian flu, only to be publically received as complete disbelief.

Still to this day, countermeasure efforts with the use of EM against avian flu and foot-and-mouth disease are not publically accepted even in Japan, so farmers are using EM for this purpose by their own will. It is not an exaggeration to say that most experts do not believe the effects of EM seen in Miyazaki Prefecture. In South Korea, even though there have been cases of EM being used against virulent H5N1 avian flu with remarkable results, the efforts would go unnoticed. One story that happened about four to five years ago in South Korea was that we received an inquiry about a duck farm that was partially infected with H5N1 avian flu, and we were asked if it would be possible to treat it with EM. From the past experiences, I answered that it would be possible, so the farmer began using EM the next day. As a result, most of the ducks were able to recover. Because of this, the farmer fought the authority's order to slaughter his birds and was able to save them.

Due to these cases, many of the livestock farmers who recognize the various effects are using EM in their operations and to prevent the spread of this devastating foot-and-mouth disease in South Korea. There have been tremendous success stories and one is introduced below.

Below is a copy of a blog entry of The Hankyoreh from January 19, 2011. There are also many other blogs in South Korea that mention EM's success stories.

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The Hankyoreh

January 19, 2011

[Quote from the field] "Using EM, I prevented impending foot-and-mouth disease"

A preventive measure used by a farm in Yeoncheon in Gyeonggi Province draws attention

Making an effort to personally disinfect and vaccinate

No damages seen from the farmers with whom he shared his fermented solution

With the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that erupted in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, showing no signs of abating as it marks its fiftieth day Monday, attention is focusing on the prevention and isolation measures used by a livestock farm in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, where 150 Korean beef cattle remain uninfected despite the presence of the disease in nearby areas.

Myeong In-gu, 58, a farmer in Jeondong Village, Baekhak Township, in Yeoncheon, which lies alongside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), said that he begins and ends each day by mixing effective microorganisms (EM) into feed and feeding it to the cattle, then mixing it with water and spraying down the area around the stall. When Myeong first set out with the sprayer Friday afternoon and began spraying the EM water at the stall play area, the sun-baked cattle began clustering around one by one. Mothers and calves alike stretched their heads to receive the moist drizzle of EM solution. Some cattle stuck out their long tongues and lapped up the solution from the sides of their noses.

Myeong's farm is in a village adjacent to Nogok Village in Baekhak Township, where foot-and-mouth disease first spread to northern Gyeonggi Province on Dec. 15 of last year. The risk area where the disease has spread includes a farm located 200 meters in front of Myeong's. Furthermore, his animals were in danger of slaughter due to the visit of employees of a manure treatment company who had traveled to the Andong area, where the outbreak first erupted

"The health authorities came a full four times to investigate, but I was confident," Myeong said. "I told them to pick any cow they liked and take a blood sample."

The slaughter was narrowly avoided. As the main reason for avoiding any foot-and-mouth infections to date, Myeong gives "cattle health management using EM."

He first became interested in EM after losing two cattle to brucellosis four years ago. In the EM production device, which he purchased for 3 million Won ($2,694), three liters of microbes, at a cost of around 12,000 Won, are mixed with 10 kilograms of sugar (15,000 Won) and eight kilograms of citric acid (16,000 Won) to produce 160 liters of fermented EM solution five days later. This amount is enough to deliver to 150 cattle for around ten days. Myeong gave free EM to six farms in Yangju and Paju, and those farms have also managed to dodge the foot-and-mouth flood thus far.

Myeong, who has raised cattle out on the farm for forty years, said that he does not pin his hopes on government quarantine measures alone. He purchased disinfectant and sprayed it at the farm's entry road, and on Dec. 26, and he personally performed inoculations with vaccine. His cattle, which graze on a field covering around 70 thousand square meters of hilly land, seemed to be growing healthfully even amid bitter subzero temperatures.

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Meanwhile, the number of livestock buried due to foot-and-mouth disease increased by 212,274 on the 16th alone, reaching a total count of 1,880,000, of which 1,740,000 was pigs. The number of affected farms also increased to 4,053. An incident of avian flu was also confirmed again on the 16th at a chicken farm located in Moga-myeon Seogyeong-ri in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province.

Yeoncheon/article and photo by Park Kyung-man, Senior Staff Writer, mania＠hani.co.kr

Original article: http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/area/459003.html 訳J.S

The above English article has been publicized around the world, and it confirms the success of EM as an effective countermeasure against foot-and-mouth disease, as seen in Miyazaki Prefecture. Just like smallpox, with the use of EM, there is a possibility in the near future to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease and avian flu that are threatening the global livestock industry. It is only a matter of time. Additionally, there would be no need to use an enormous amount of money like in the case of smallpox, and it would cause no burden to farmers. Using EM makes safe, easy, low-cost, high quality, and sustainable livestock operations available to farmers, which then links to the development of organic agriculture. Just as this series title states, "Restore! Food, Health and the Earth Environment."

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