In Memoriam Master Cho Han-Kyu 1935-2025
I want to take some time to honor my hero, Master Cho Han-Kyu. He was born in Sowan, South Korea, in 1935. He started life as a peasant chicken farmer.
In the 1960s, he studied in Japan and was a Research Fellow of Indigenous Agriculture there for three years. Master Cho was profoundly influenced by three teachers in Japan.
Cho’s first teacher was Yamagishi Myojo, who founded Yamagishism. “Farming to him was a reality and life itself.” His primary concern was honoring the basic rights of chickens as living entities. Yamagishi was famous for his saying, “Do not act without observing and do not say without acting.”
His teachings emphasized the mind instead of technology and management practices. His teachings “became a wake-up call to scholars who thought they can handle living organisms with analytic and mechanical engineering disciplines.”
Cho’s second teacher was Shibada Genshi, who wrote “The True Meaning of Enzymes.” Research into enzymes and microbiology was widespread in Japan at the time and the farming method was the maximum utilization of the regional resources aimed at enhancing crop harvest.
Genshi’s focus was on how to utilize the native microorganisms and enzymes in the region. Watching the amazing results of this work, Master Cho said, “I even pinched myself wondering if I was only dreaming or visiting the spirits.”
Master Cho’s third teacher was Oinoue Yasushi, creator of the first Kyoho cultivars (grapes) in Japan and author of “Theoretical System of New Cultivation Technology.” His straightforward logic on the physiological and behavioral patterns of plants led Master Cho to develop his theory of “the nurturing cycle,” now referred to as the Nutritive Cycle.
Master Cho began advertising his Natural Farming Concept in Korea in 1967. His concepts initially were not well received by everyone. In fact, he was considered a threat.
Cho was often arrested and beaten by the police. He tells the story that with one beating, the police actually called his wife and told her to come and pick up the body. Thank God he was not actually dead.
This shows how dedicated he was to his work. He was willing to die to bring us the knowledge he gained from Nature.
By the time I met him in 2010, he had been teaching his methods for over 40 years in over 40 countries. He brought his wisdom to Hawaii where we could share it with the rest of the United States and the Western World. He died a hero in his homeland and around the world.
He took his wisdom to many countries and worked with poor farmers with little to no resources. His system is designed to help people with very little to grow food. He spoke about how rich these farmers, who thought they had nothing, were.
In fact, when I took his system to a Least Developed Nation and taught it to the sustenance farmers there, the overwhelming, unsolicited comment was, “I feel so rich!”
Master Cho gave it all away for free. He did it for Love. That was his guiding principle, Love. The only thing he kept to himself, and the only thing he charged money for, was his mineral solutions: Mineral A, Mineral B, and so on.
He had these mineral solutions produced in Japan, and we bought them when we were able. You can practice his system without these mineral inputs, although it works better when you use them. We wanted to buy them to offer Master Cho our financial support. After all, he gave us absolutely everything else for free!
It wasn’t always easy to get his mineral solutions. They were sold in clear bottles, like water bottles, with simple labels, and Biosecurity in Hawaii was suspicious. We bought them whenever he could get a few boxes through customs.
Cho turned around my Tea Farm. I was growing my tea organically before I met him, but when I started using his methods, my dead red clay became rich dirt quickly, my quality and yields increased, I was doing less work, and my input costs were reduced by 90%.
Beyond what he did for my commercial farm, I have a special connection to Master Cho. He was someone it took me most of my life to find. I grew up with a grandfather who was a Natural Farmer. We didn’t call it that at the time, but that is exactly what my grandfather, Henry was.
Henry was also a Master at growing things. Both could look at a plant and know what was wrong when the plant showed no visible indications to normal people.
I once visited an orchid farm with Master Cho. The farmer was having problems with the sudden death of his orchids. They would look healthy, then suddenly die. Master Cho picked up one of the healthiest-looking orchids, and turned the pot around and around, studying it.
After a few moments, he stopped and pointed to a point on the pot. “Here,” he said, “the problem is here.” The farmer took the orchid out of the pot, and sure, enough, the spot Master Cho pointed to had a spot of fungal disease. At that point, I knew that he was a genius.
My grandfather, Henry, had similar skills. Henry started teaching me when I was literally a toddler. As I got a little older, I would sit on his lap in the evenings, and we would study J.I. Rodale’s new book on growing Organically. We studied books on Biodynamics, Biointensive, French Intensive, lunar cycles, and whatever else Grandpa could find.
Henry was always searching for the secret. He knew that somehow people should be able to grow food using Nature.
Even in the early 1960s, the age of “better living through chemistry,” it was evident that using chemicals to farm was detrimental to the environment and human health. My grandfather's search for “the secret” of growing food with the Power of Nature became my search. I was always researching. It was a large part of why I became a scientist.
When I saw Cho diagnose a healthy-looking orchid plant, I knew I had found a Master. I was not wrong. Master Cho found the secrets that my grandfather spent his life looking for. He cracked the code of growing food with the Power of Nature.
I have dedicated the rest of my life to sharing the secrets that Master Cho discovered. He almost died bringing us this wisdom. The results are magical. It has the power to save the world through the act of growing food. The entire system is based on Love. I honor Master Han-Kyu Cho as my Hero, with deep and abiding Love.
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