MODULE 1: WORKSHOP ON : THE PRINCIPLES OF ORGANICS AND COMPOST MAKING

In response to the Global Environmental and Health crisis, there is increasing consumer awareness of the need to source and support ethically grown food that supplies us with the nutrients that our bodies need for basic health and vitality. The media and enlightened medical practitioners have exposed the gross amounts of pesticides and poisons that are used to grow the “food” sold in our supermarkets, and the rampant global health and obesity epidemic is proof that we need to eat differently. Growers and farmers are responding to the increased demand and households are growing their own food. All very positive!

The challenge now facing us is the misinformation and disinformation campaign from the chemical and vested interests in big business, and so there is confusion about what organic really is.

This is an existing and successful workshop which takes place on a certified organic farm which has been farming organically for 16 years, and covers theoretical and practical instruction that is aimed at the following:

1. Farmers and smallholders
2. Consumers wanting to grow their own food
3. Retailers and Health practitioners wanting to understand the constructs of Organic in order to educate themselves and their clients.

The workshop covers the following:

1. Why Organic? The devastation wreaked on the Planet, humans and animals as we moved AWAY from organic.
2. In depth study of the structure of HEALTHY soil. Types of soil, PH and what it means, soil minerals and what causes imbalances- and how this affects our health and soil health, understanding the ratios and relationships.
3. Micro-organisms- what they are, what they do and their essential co-existence in soil with each other and with plants. There is a plethora of books now published that deal just with micro-organisms because we are only now realising their importance. They are the army under and within the soil that we kill with our unsustainable farming and chemical practices.
4. Roots. How they work, how they take up minerals and nutrients, and their relationships with each other and the micro-organisms that live on them.
5. Compost - what is it and what it is not. Different types of compost, and how to make them. How to measure them, and use them. Practical compost making.
6. Worm farming. What is it. How and why it works.

Delegates leave with a full training pack, and access to me via phone and/or internet for follow up advice.