Practice

Korean Natural Farming

Also known as: KNF, Cho's Global Natural Farming, JADAM (sister tradition)

A natural-farming framework developed by Korean farmer-scientist Cho Han Kyu (1935–2024) over five decades, drawing on traditional Korean agricultural knowledge, Japanese natural-farming traditions, and his own experimentation. Emphasizes Indigenous Microorganisms (IMO) collected from local forests, plant-derived inputs (Fermented Plant Juice, Fish Amino Acids, Lactic Acid Bacteria), and inputs made by the farmer from local materials. Practiced widely across Asia, Hawaii, and increasingly North America; particularly influential in cannabis cultivation and in tropical regenerative agriculture.

Origins

Cho Han Kyu (1935–2024) developed Korean Natural Farming over a working lifetime in Korea. Trained in agricultural science but increasingly skeptical of chemical-agriculture approaches, he spent decades synthesizing traditional Korean farming knowledge, Japanese [[natural-farming|natural farming]] ([[masanobu-fukuoka|Fukuoka]]), and his own experimentation into a coherent operational framework.

His son Cho Youngsang carries the work forward through the Janong [[natural-farming|Natural Farming]] Institute in Korea and through international training programs.

Core principles

KNF treats the farm — and the farmer — as participants in a living system that already contains everything needed for health. The farmer’s job is to identify, collect, ferment, and apply the local biological inputs that activate the system.

Key inputs (the “KNF toolkit”)

[[indigenous-microorganisms|Indigenous Microorganisms]] (IMO 1–4) — microbes captured from local forests using cooked rice in cedar boxes, then expanded through bran and soil over four sequential stages. The foundational input.
Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) — fermented from young, fast-growing plant tips
Oriental Herbal Nutrient (OHN) — alcohol extracts of garlic, ginger, angelica, [[cinnamon|cinnamon]], licorice
Fish Amino Acid (FAA) — fermented fish waste
[[lactic-acid|Lactic Acid]] Bacteria (LAB) — fermented from rice-wash water and milk
Water-Soluble Calcium (WCA), WSCP, etc. — mineral preparations from eggshells, animal bones
Brown Rice Vinegar, Mineral Apatite, etc. — finishing-stage inputs

The farmer makes all of these from local materials. KNF rejects external commercial inputs as a matter of principle.

Spread

KNF spread through Asia (especially Korea, Hawaii, the Philippines, Thailand) through farmer-to-farmer training; it reached North America in the 2000s through the Hawaii agriculture community and has become particularly prominent in [[cannabis|cannabis]] cultivation, where the focus on biological inputs and microbial diversity aligns with growers’ interest in plant secondary metabolites.

The sister tradition JADAM (Just A Dynamic And Mighty / 자닮), led by Cho Han Kyu’s student Cho Youngsang and now by independent practitioners, simplifies KNF into lower-cost, larger-scale farmer applications.

Sources

Cho’s Global Natural Farming Handbook (Janong [[natural-farming|Natural Farming]] Institute)
KNF and JADAM published training materials
Hawaii Department of Agriculture KNF technical guides

Rooted in life.

What links here, and how

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Practical

founded

Cho Han-Kyu Cho is the founder of Korean Natural Farming (KNF), the system this wiki entry covers

contained in

Indigenous Microorganisms IMOs are the structural foundation of the KNF system; the other KNF preparations build outward from them

shares approach with

Zero Budget Natural Farming Asian peer system; KNF and ZBNF both reduce natural farming to a small set of farmer-makeable preparations

3 inbound links · 3 outbound