EM Tour of Lower North Island...successful and very well attended!

A very successful series of workshops and meetings was held from 26 April - 29 April in the lower North Island in conjunction with a visit from Dr. Ravi Sangakkara. We also sponsored Fred Haskins from Australia, a farmer and expert user of EM®. The programme began in Wellington on Monday with two meetings focusing on Bokashi®. Attendance was 35 and 55 respectively. The group then went through to Otaki for an evening seminar organized by Dave Johnston (Distributor), and hosted at Gary & Emily Williams permaculture farm. This focused on both EM and Bokashi on farms and small holdings,  and was attended by around 25 people. Gary and Emily showed us thier wonderful natural swimming pool which uses EM as part of the maintenance programme.

The next day was based at the Awapune Recycling Centre in Palmerston North. The day began with an address by Pip Chrystall on her project using EM for odour control in several areas around the recycling site with the focus being odour management of sludge. This was followed by a walk and inspection of the site.  In the afternoon we had in-house session for EM distributors. This comprised of key note addresses by Ravi and Fred Haskins. In addition, each of the distributors gave a report on their areas of expertise. The final part of the day involved John King facilitating a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). This exercise was very successful with excellent feedback from all who participated.

The next day, Wednesday, a farm walk and discussion was held on Reuben Mai's Organic Dairy Farm. Rueben is a focus farm for EM technology. He has been using EM for two years in a range of ways. The day was attended by about 20 people. After a keynote address by Ravi, Reuben told the group about his management and use of EM throughout the farm. The final part of the field day included a facilitation exercise by John King to determine what had been learnt and what questions remained unanswered. A very interesting day, and congratulations to Reuben for his commitment to organics and sustaining the environment.

A core group then travelled through to Hastings for an evening meeting organized by Marion Thomson from the Hastings Environment Centre, and hosted  at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Taradale. This session featured a key note address by Ravi, then, the participants broke into concurrent sessions of Bokashi and Waste Management, Farming and Horticulture, and Viticulture. We were fortunate to have speaker Bart Arnst,  a Specialist Organic Viticultural Consultant from Marlborough to address those interested in Viticulture and EM. Around 50 people attended.

The meetings were well attended, in general, and some good contacts were made. The highlight of the tour was the in-house session and opportunity for networking and building confidence and among the EM distributors. This group expressed a desire to meet annually.